New book details Kermit Gosnell’s grisly crimes

Mike talks with film makers Ann McElhinney & Phelim Mcakeer about their documentary concerning the abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell and the atrocities he committed at his clinic. They discuss Gosnell’s trial and why the media was so quiet about it.

Christine Rousselle

Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer manage to both grip the reader and utterly horrify them in their retelling of the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell. Gosnell is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Officially, he was convicted of three counts of murder and one count of involuntary manslaughter, but his actual death toll is estimated to be in the hundreds, if not thousands. Through a technique described as “snipping,” Gosnell would sever the spinal cords of infants who survived his (illegal) late-term abortions to “ensure fetal demise.”

Imagine the most disgusting place possible–something straight out of an episode of Hoarders, or one of Stephen King’s more twisted works, perhaps. Gosnell’s clinic in Philadelphia was worse. Through interviews with police officers who initially busted the clinic for being a pill mill, former patients, and former clinic employees, McElhinney and McAleer manage to paint a vivid yet utterly disturbing picture of just how disgusting the conditions were at the office. Dirty, broken equipment. Disposable equipment being re-used. Bloodstains everywhere. Girls getting STDs from procedures. Unqualified staffers administering anesthesia. A pair of cats roaming around freely. Just when you think things can’t get any more disturbing, they somehow do. It’s a miracle more women weren’t killed.

Throughout the book, the major feeling conveyed is a sense of utter despair and confusion that this was allowed to happen for as long as it did. Thanks to regulations that were designed to ensure that women had easy access to safe abortion, the clinic was not inspected for a period of 17 years. Until the police raided the place in 2010 after a tip that Gosnell was supplying drug dealers with opiates, the clinic had last been inspected in 1993. To put things into comparison, nail salons in Pennsylvania are inspected at least every other year. Yet, nobody did anything about Gosnell’s clinic for nearly two decades–even after two women died after their abortions and another came very close to being a third. Nothing.

McElhinney and McAleer do an excellent job of describing the horrors of Gosnell’s crimes without being overly preachy. McElhinney has written about how she had previously been annoyed by pro-life activists, and her writing comes off as about as objective as a person can be when confronted with crimes of this magnitude. The authors do not shy away from graphic descriptions of both the scene and of Gosnell’s victims–even if the reader may prefer they do as such.

It’s important that the utter evil is confronted head on–which in the chapter Media Malpractice, the authors outline how this story was almost swept entirely under the rug. Their effort to correct this wrong culminated in this book, and in their upcoming film.

In short: This is the most disgusting, upsetting, and utterly disturbing book I’ve ever read. Yet, in order to prevent something like this from happening ever again, it’s one that absolutely needs to be read.

Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

Federal charges: Conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, distribution and aiding and abetting the distribution of oxycodone, and maintaining a place for the illegal distribution of controlled substances (12 counts total)

Convicted on four state counts, hundreds of similar incidents reported

Country

United States of America

State(s)

Pennsylvania

Kermit Barron Gosnell (born February 9, 1941) is an American former abortion-provider[2] who was convicted of murdering three infants who were born alive during attempted abortion procedures.[3][4][5][6][7]

Gosnell owned and operated the Women’s Medical Society clinic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and he was a prolific prescriber of OxyContin.[8] In 2011, Gosnell and various co-defendant employees were charged with eight counts of murder, 24 felony counts of performing illegal abortions beyond the state of Pennsylvania’s 24-week time limit, and 227 misdemeanor counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law. The murder charges related to an adult patient, Karnamaya Mongar, who died following an abortion procedure, and seven newborns said to have been killed by having their spinal cords severed with scissors after being born alive during attempted abortions. In May 2013, Gosnell was convicted of first degree murder in the deaths of three of the infants and involuntary manslaughter in the death of Karnamaya Mongar. Gosnell was also convicted of 21 felony counts of illegal late-term abortion, and 211 counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law. After his conviction, Gosnell waived his right to appeal in exchange for an agreement not to seek the death penalty. He was sentenced instead to life in prison without the possibility of parole.[9][10]

Background and early career

Kermit Gosnell was born on February 9, 1941, in Philadelphia, the only child of a gas station operator and a government clerk[11] in an African-American family.[12] He was a top student at the city’s Central High School from which he graduated in 1959.[13] Gosnell graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA with a bachelor’s degree.[14] Gosnell received his Medical Degree at the Jefferson Medical School in 1966.[13] It has been reported that he spent four decades practising medicine among the poor, including opening the Mantua Halfway House, a rehab clinic for drug addicts in the impoverished Mantua neighborhood of West Philadelphia near where he grew up, and a teen aid program.[13] He became an early proponent of abortion rights in the 1960s and 1970s and, in 1972, he returned from a stint in New York City to open up an abortion clinic on Lancaster Avenue in Mantua.[11][15] Gosnell told a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter in October 1972: “as a physician, I am very concerned about the sanctity of life. But it is for this precise reason that I provide abortions for women who want and need them”.[16]

In the same year, he also performed fifteen televised second-trimester abortions, using an experimental “Super Coil” method invented by Harvey Karman. The coils were inserted into the uterus, where they caused irritation leading to the expulsion of the fetus. However, complications from the procedure were reported by nine of the women, with three of these reporting severe complications.[17][18] The super coil experiment by Gosnell has been dubbed the “mother’s day massacre” by some.[19]

The 1972 Inquirer article also said that Gosnell was a “respected man” in his community, a finalist for the Junior Chamber of Commerce’s “Young Philadelphian of the Year” because of his work directing the Mantua Halfway House.[16] By the late 1980s, however, public records showed state tax liens were piling up against the halfway house, and the abortion clinic had a $41,000 federal tax lien.[16]

Gosnell has been married three times. His third and current wife, Pearl, had worked at the Women’s Medical Society as a full-time medical assistant from 1982 until their marriage in 1990.[1] They have two children; the younger, being a minor, is being cared for by friends[20] Gosnell has four other children from his two previous marriages.[20] In covering his background, media commentators drew attention to the “incredibly diverse” portrayals of Gosnell, touching on both his community works – the creation of a drugs halfway house and teen aid program – contrasted with portrayals of his practice as an alleged abortion mill in which viable fetuses and babies were routinely killed following illegal late-term procedures.[13]

Medical practice

In 2011, he was reported to be well known in Philadelphia for providing abortions to poor minority and immigrant women.[21] It was also claimed that Gosnell charged $1,600–$3,000 for each late-term abortion.[22] Dr. Gosnell was also associated with clinics in Delaware and Louisiana. Atlantic Women’s Services in Wilmington, Delaware, was Dr. Gosnell’s place of work one day a week. The owner of Atlantic Women’s Services, Leroy Brinkley, also owned Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and facilitated the hiring of staff from there for Gosnell’s operation in Philadelphia.[23]

Legal case

Known prior complaints

1989 and 1993 – cited by Pennsylvania Department of Health for having no nurses in the recovery room.[24]

1996 – censured and fined in both Pennsylvania and New York states, for employing unlicensed personnel.[24]

Around 1996 – Pediatrician Dr Schwartz – the former head of adolescent services at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and as of 2010, Philadelphia’s health commissioner – testified in the 2010 hearing that around 1996 or 1997, he had hand-delivered a letter of complaint about Gosnell’s practice to the Secretary of Health’s office and stopped referring patients to the clinic, but received no response.[25]

2000 – Civil lawsuit filed on behalf of the children of Semika Shaw, who had called the clinic the day after an abortion to report heavy bleeding, and died 3 days later of a perforated uterus and a bloodstream infection. The case alleged that Gosnell had failed to tell her to return to the clinic or seek emergency medical care. It was settled out of court in 2002 for $900,000.[16][26]

Around 2001 – Gosnell claimed to be providing children’s vaccines under a program administered by the Health Department’s Division of Disease Control, but was repeatedly suspended for failing to maintain logs and for storing vaccines in unsanitary and inappropriate refrigerators, and at improper temperatures.[27]

December 2001 – ex-employee Marcella Choung gave what the Grand Jury would later call “a detailed written complaint” to the Pennsylvania Department of State, one which she followed up with an interview in March 2002.[28]

2006 – Civil lawsuit filed by patient but dismissed as out of time. The complaint was that Gosnell had been unable to complete an abortion, but then apparently failed or refused to call paramedics or other clinical emergency personnel, after the patient had needed help. The patient reported, “I really felt like he was going to let me die.”[29]

In total during the course of his career, 46 known lawsuits had been filed against Gosnell over some 32 years.[30] Observers claimed that there was a complete failure by Pennsylvania regulators who had overlooked other repeated concerns brought to their attention, including lack of trained staff, “barbaric” conditions, and a high level of illegal late-term abortions.[31]

2010 raid

The Women’s Medical Society was raided on 18 February 2010 under a search warrant by investigators from the FBI and state police. The raid was the result of a months-long investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Philadelphia Police Department, and the State’s Dangerous Drug-Offender Unit into suspected illegal drug prescription use at the practice. The investigation had also revealed the suspicious death of patient Karnamaya Mongar in 2009, which had in turn brought to light further information about unsanitary operations, use of untrained staff, and use of powerful drugs without proper medical supervision and control. Thus, when the February 2010 raid took place, staff from the Pennsylvania Department of State and Pennsylvania Department of Health also attended, as these issues were under their remit:[32]

When the team members entered the clinic, they were appalled, describing it to the Grand Jury as ‘filthy,’ ‘deplorable,’ ‘disgusting,’ ‘very unsanitary, very outdated, horrendous,’ and ‘by far, the worst’ that these experienced investigators had ever encountered. There was blood on the floor. A stench of urine filled the air. A flea-infested cat was wandering through the facility, and there were cat feces on the stairs. Semi-conscious women scheduled for abortions were moaning in the waiting room or the recovery room, where they sat on dirty recliners covered with blood-stained blankets. All the women had been sedated by unlicensed staff – long before Gosnell arrived at the clinic – and staff members could not accurately state what medications or dosages they had administered to the waiting patients. Many of the medications in inventory were past their expiration dates… surgical procedure rooms were filthy and unsanitary… resembling ‘a bad gas station restroom.’ Instruments were not sterile. Equipment was rusty and outdated. Oxygen equipment was covered with dust, and had not been inspected. The same corroded suction tubing used for abortions was the only tubing available for oral airways if assistance for breathing was needed…”[33]

[F]etal remains [were] haphazardly stored throughout the clinic– in bags, milk jugs, orange juice cartons, and even in cat-food containers… Gosnell admitted to Detective Wood that at least 10 to 20 percent… were probably older than 24 weeks [the legal limit]… In some instances, surgical incisions had been made at the base of the fetal skulls. The investigators found a row of jars containing just the severed feet of fetuses. In the basement, they discovered medical waste piled high. The intact 19-week fetus delivered by Mrs. Mongar three months earlier was in a freezer. In all, the remains of 45 fetuses were recovered … at least two of them, and probably three, had been viable.”[33]

Gosnell’s license to practice was suspended on 22 February 2010,[34] and these and other findings were presented to a Grand Jury on 4 May 2010. Public discussion focused on claims of unsanitary conditions and other unacceptable conditions at the practices. Media reports stated that furniture and blankets were stained with blood, freely roaming cats deposited their feces wherever they pleased, and that non-sterilized equipment was used and reused on patients.[35][36][37][38] According to the grand jury report, patients were given labor-inducing drugs by staff who had no medical training. Once labor began, the patient would be placed on a toilet. After the fetus fell into the toilet, it would be fished out, so as not to clog the plumbing. In the recovery room, patients were seated on dirty recliners covered in blood-stained blankets.[39] Prosecutors alleged that Gosnell had not been certified in either gynecology or obstetrics.[30] The Grand Jury estimated that Gosnell’s practice “took in $10,000 to $15,000 a night” additional to income from his exceedingly high level of prescriptions.[40]

2011 arrest

Gosnell was arrested on January 19, 2011, five days after the certification of the Grand Jury’s report. He was charged with eight counts of murder.[41] Prosecutors alleged that he killed seven babies born alive by severing their spinal cords with scissors, and that he was also responsible for the death in 2009 of Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old refugee from Bhutan,[42] who died in his care. Gosnell’s wife, Pearl, and eight other suspects were also arrested in connection with the case.[1][42][43] The Drug Enforcement Administration, The Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Office of the Inspector General also sought a 23-count indictment charging Gosnell and seven members of his former staff with drug conspiracy, relating to the practice’s illegally prescribing highly-addictive painkillers and sedatives outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose.

The third degree murder charge relates to Karnamaya Mongar; according to prosecutors, Gosnell’s staff gave the 90-pound woman a lethal dose of anesthesia and painkillers. Gosnell’s lawyer asserts that Karnamaya Mongar also had in her system other drugs that did not come from Gosnell’s clinic, and that none of the infants were born alive.[44] The claim was rejected by the Grand Jury, based upon expert testimony that “it was the overdose of Demerol, not some mystery pill, that killed Mrs. Mongar.”[45]

The seven other murder charges are all of first degree murder; they relate to babies, whom staff have testified they saw move or cry after complete birth, and whose deaths are alleged to have resulted from subsequent lethal action. They arise because of the “born alive rule“, a principle of common law which stipulates that by default, for legal purposes, personhood arises – and therefore unlawful killing constituting murder becomes possible – immediately upon the victim’s being born alive (several US states as well as Federal legislation have more specific laws to protect fetuses and newborn babies; see fetal rights and born alive laws in the United States). Steven Massof, a clinic employee who pleaded guilty to similar charges in 2011, testified that he (Massof) had snipped the spines of more than 100 infants after they had been born alive, and that this was considered “standard procedure” at the clinic; a number of other employees had also testified to the same point.[46] No physical evidence exists for five of the seven cases — charges are based on staff testimony and denied by Gosnell. A photograph exists of the sixth, who allegedly had a gestational age of 30 weeks, and the physical remains were obtained of the seventh.[44] The Grand Jury report states that “A medical expert with 43 years of experience in performing abortions was appalled. This expert told us, ‘I’ve never heard of it [cutting the spinal cord] being done during an abortion’.”[47]

The United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania also alleges that Gosnell’s former office staff at Family and Women’s Medical Society (WMS) ran a prescription “pill mill.” From June 2008 through February 18, 2010, Gosnell allegedly engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise by writing and dispensing fraudulent prescriptions for thousands of pills of the frequently-abused tablets OxyContin, Percocet, and Xanax, and the frequently-abused syrups Phenergan and Promethazine with Codeine. Authorities further allege that Gosnell and his staff allowed customers to purchase multiple prescriptions under multiple names. For the first office visit, Gosnell allegedly charged $115, but that increased around December 2009 when he allegedly increased the initial office visit fee to $150. Staff at the clinic went from writing several hundred prescriptions for controlled substances per month filled at pharmacies in 2008 to over 2,300 filled at pharmacies in January 2010. Gosnell, with the assistance of his staff, is said to have distributed and dispensed more than 500,000 pills containing oxycodone; more than 400,000 pills containing alprazolam; and more than 19,000 ounces of cough syrup containing codeine.[48]

Gosnell’s lawyer states that “Everybody’s made him the butcher, this, that and the other thing without any trial, without anything being exposed to the public and everybody’s found him guilty, that’s not right”.[49] He accused the government of a “lynching” and stated, “This is a targeted, elitist and racist prosecution of a doctor who’s done nothing but give (back) to the poor and the people of West Philadelphia.”[44]

Cases cited in the media

Examples of cases cited in the media include:

Girl age 15, accompanied by relative (1998): said to have told Gosnell she changed her mind about the abortion once inside the practice. Gosnell allegedly got upset, ripped off the patient’s clothing, and forcibly restrained her. The patient later stated that Gosnell told her “This is the same care that I would give to my own daughter.” She regained consciousness 12 hours later at her aunt’s home, the abortion having been completed against her will.[42][50]

Woman age 28, five months pregnant (2001): Patient described the pain four days after abortion as being so bad she could barely walk. The patient described that upon returning to the clinic because of the pain, ultrasound showed fetal remains left inside her uterus, and that Gosnell suctioned these out without anesthesia.[51] “I was just laying on the table and crying and I just asked the Lord to get me through it.”[42]

Fifteen-year-old (undated): damages awarded in court upon a finding that Gosnell performed an abortion on a fifteen-year-old without parental permission.[42]

Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old refugee from Bhutan (2009): according to prosecutors, Gosnell’s staff gave the 90-pound woman a lethal dose of anesthesia and painkillers during a 2009 abortion (this is the adult whose death is charged as third degree murder). During Gosnell’s trial, a toxicologist testified to unsafe levels of the drug, and the chair of Anesthesiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School testified that the dose received by her was “outrageous” and “most” average adults would have stopped breathing if dosed in the manner described.[52] Gosnell’s lawyer asserts that Karnamaya Mongar also had other drugs in her system that did not come from Gosnell’s clinic, and that none of the infants were born alive.[44]

Lack of government oversight

Reports state that state officials had failed to visit or inspect Gosnell’s practices since 1993.[43] The grand jury report noted that the medical examiner of Delaware County alerted the Pennsylvania Department of Health that Gosnell had performed an illegal abortion on a 14-year-old who was thirty weeks pregnant;[53] it is also claimed the Pennsylvania Department of Health did not act when they became aware of Gosnell’s involvement in the death of Karnamaya Mongar.[53]

Brenda Green, executive director of CHOICE, a nonprofit that connects the underinsured and uninsured with health services, told Katha Pollitt of The Nation that “it tried to report complaints from clients, but the department wouldn’t accept them from a third party. Instead, the patients had to fill out a daunting five-page form, available only in English, that required them to reveal their identities upfront and be available to testify in Harrisburg. Even with CHOICE staffers there to help, only two women agreed to fill out the form, and both decided not to submit it. The Department of State and the Philadelphia Public Health Department also had ample warning of dire conditions and took no action.”[53]

In 2011, it was reported that none of Pennsylvania’s 22 abortion clinics had been inspected by the government for more than 15 years.[54] Inspections (other than those triggered by complaints) had ceased under Ridge’s governorship, as they were perceived to create a barrier to women seeking abortion services.[55]

Grand Jury report

The grand Jury published its 280-page report in January 2011. It stated that, while some might see the issue and case through the lens of pro- and anti-abortion politics, it was in reality:

not about that controversy; it is about disregard of the law and disdain for the lives and health of mothers and infants. We find common ground in exposing what happened here, and in recommending measures to prevent anything like this from ever happening again.[56]

The grand jury concluded that the practice was a corrupt organization within the meaning of racketeering law, based upon what it considered evidence of deliberate “standard” use of “bogus” doctors, falsification of records, grossly unprofessional procedures with little or no regard for human life, and flagrant disregard for medical and abortion laws and their consequences. Key findings included:

Practice conditions and procedures

Extreme unsanitary conditions (resulting in cases of STDs and sepsis); pervasive non-sterile conditions; blood stained materials and instruments; contamination of the facilities by animal feces, urine, and other noxious fluids and waste; and months-old fetal remains stored in “jars, bags and jugs”[57] (in 2013 the trial heard that Gosnell had also been in dispute with his medical waste company, with the latter stopping their services);[58]

Surgical malpractice including perforation of bodily organs and “on at least two occasions” death;[56]

Lack of properly trained staff, “bogus doctors”[60] — unqualified, unlicensed and unsupervised staff who misrepresented themselves to patients as qualified licensed clinicians — and no qualified nurses.[61] The jury reported that “Most of Gosnell’s employees who worked with patients had little or no remotely relevant training or education”[62] (ex-employee Marcella Choung, who in 2001 and at interview in 2002 gave a detailed written complaint to the Pennsylvania Department of State, testified that her ‘training’ for anesthesia consisted of “a 15-minute description by Gosnell and reading a chart he had posted in a cabinet.”)[63]

Gosnell himself was largely absent and left the clinic to be operated by his unqualified employees, whom he sometimes “ordered” to perform medical actions even if they “protested” that they were unqualified. Employees testified they had to rely on themselves, as “Gosnell disliked it when workers disturbed him by calling for medication advice”;[64]

Operation of a “prescription treadmill” whereby blank signed prescriptions would be left for those seeking controlled medications, unsupervised and uncontrolled by a practitioner (which was the subject of a parallel and separate Federal investigation);[59]

Fraudulent temporary employment of a nurse for 4 days during an NAF inspection, with the aim of deceiving the inspectors into believing that his practice staff included a licensed registered nurse (which it did not); over the few days of their on-site review, the nurse resigned upon realizing the fraud, which also involved Gosnell taking her paycheck back afterwards and paying her in cash instead;[66]

Fraudulent recording of gestational age and training of staff to manipulate ultrasound in a way that would match the stated number of weeks;[67]

Dishonest statements by Gosnell and employees to investigators, including claims that Ms. Mongar’s death was due to her own action (discredited forensically), falsification and destruction of records, and lying about the manner of her death and Gosnell’s (lack of) presence for anesthesia;[68]

Patients given labor and delivery inducing drugs during the day, then left waiting until late evening for Gosnell to attend or for surgery.[69] Many gave birth during the day as a result, and employees testified “it was standard procedure for women to deliver fetuses – and viable babies – into toilets” while waiting for his arrival.[70]

Practice staff routinely delivered living babies in the third trimester, subsequently killing them (or ensuring their death).[56] As part of this, fetuses and babies had their demise “ensured” post-operatively by severing of the spinal cord with scissors, known by staff as “snipping”. Most of these were deemed infeasible to prosecute because files and other evidence were not held, although the report stipulates they numbered in the “hundreds”. Among the “few cases” where tangible evidence existed, the jury noted a boy aged 30 weeks at 6 pounds; a frozen body in a water container of “at least” 28 weeks; remains of at least one abortion of over 32 weeks for which an extra $1000 had been demanded; testimony of a baby heard to make noise; and a baby left “moving and breathing for at least 20 minutes” prior to “snipping”. The jury heard testimony about “special” Sunday sessions, at which only Gosnell and his wife were present, which the jury suspected (and in some cases was able to corroborate) would include cases that were more advanced in time, or more disturbing;[71]

Over time, Gosnell and his practice acquired a “bad reputation” and during the decade 2000–9, local community organizations ceased referring patients there. To compensate, the practice took on referrals from other in-state cities; it became understood that Gosnell’s center would perform abortions “at any stage, without regard for legal limits”;[72]

Woman “left lying in place for hours after Gosnell tore her cervix and colon“; relatives called police after entrance refused, remedial colon surgery required.

Woman sent home with fetal remains unremoved, “serious infection” led to near death.

Punctured uterus leading to shock from blood loss and hysterectomy; woman “held for hours” by the practice.

Patient suffered “convulsions” and fell off the operating table, sustaining a head injury, Gosnell “wouldn’t call an ambulance, and wouldn’t let the woman’s companion leave the building so that he could call an ambulance”

Sedation used to mute sounds of pain; Gosnell specified pre-set amounts of drugs for non-physician staff to use on patients, but without reference to individual needs, and without records or monitoring of condition. On numerous occasions, the same patient was dosed multiple times in quick succession by different employees;[74]

Death of Karnamaya Mongar, who received “repeated unmonitored, unrecorded intravenous injections of Demerol” (meperidine hydrochloride, an opioidanalgesic which the report describes practice staff using as a cheap but dangerous sedative), and ceased breathing. Staff were unable to revive her (emergency medications were not used and the defibrillator was not working), and paramedics were unable to revive her after gaining access, in part because they were deceived by staff as to what had happened and the drugs and dosages responsible.

Government and third-party handling

Gosnell’s practice was “caught by accident” during a raid for illegal drugs prescribing. State officials had been invited to attend the raid as well, since preparations for the drugs raid had revealed prior reports and information suggesting grossly substandard practise conditions at the clinic;[75]

Pennsylvania Department of Health failed to regulate properly and failed to ensure that the issues noticed were addressed on the few occasions around 1990 that Gosnell was inspected; and ceased inspections “for political reasons” (to reduce a perceived deterrent) at the time Tom Ridge took office as Governor of the State;[76]

Inspections were still to continue if complaints were received, yet repeated complaints did not trigger an investigation; the department’s response came after media exposure;[76]

The Department of State’s Board of Medicine, which licenses and oversees physicians, had “more damning information than anyone else”, including a description of the practice by an ex-employee (Choung) a decade previously (2001 and again 2002), as well as knowledge of at least one of the serious incidents cited of surgical malpractice, but took verbal assurances from Gosnell and no other effective or substantial investigative action was taken over these;[77]

Department of Public Health employees “regularly” visited the practice but had not adequately reported the issues present. One inspection confirmed “numerous violations of protocols for storage and disposal of infectious waste” but no follow-up occurred;[78]

A “health department representative” visiting for a vaccination program in 2009 “discovered that Gosnell was scamming the program” and “was able to file detailed reports identifying many of the most egregious elements of Gosnell’s practice.” Her attempts to raise concerns were ignored; the Grand Jury report states “her reports went into a black hole”;[79]

Other third parties had knowledge, but took no visible action. These included the pediatrician and subsequent head of the city’s health department, Dr Schwartz, who around 1996–97, reported concerns about the practice, concerns on which no action was taken, and who did not himself act after being promoted, University of Pennsylvania hospital and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center who treated numerous surgical failures from Gosnell’s practice, including a “flagrantly illegal abortion”, but reported only one of them; the National Abortion Federation whose evaluator around 2009 noted “records were not properly kept, that risks were not explained, that patients were not monitored, that equipment was not available, that anesthesia was misused” and concluded “[i]t was the worst abortion clinic she had ever inspected”, but no report was made of this to any official body;[80]

Culpability

The report divided offences by Gosnell and other practice employees into three categories: “charges arising from the baby murders and illegal abortions; charges in connection with the death of Karnamaya Mongar; and charges stemming generally from the ongoing operation of a criminal enterprise“. The charges recommended were:[81]

Gosnell, Williams, Moton, and Massof – charged with first degree murder for the post-operative killings where evidence existed that the baby was born alive

Gosnell, Williams, Moton, Massof, and West – charged with conspiracy to commit murder in relation to “hundreds of unidentifiable instances” of post-operative killings (called “snipping” by staff). The jury also recommended charges of solicitation to commit murder by Gosnell.[47]

Gosnell and (as co-conspirators) Williams, West, and Gosnell’s wife – charged with various violations of the Abortion Control Act, including infanticide and illegal late-term abortions;

Gosnell, Williams, and West – charged with third-degree murder (Pennsylvania’s equivalent to reckless or voluntary manslaughter), drug delivery resulting in death, violations of the Controlled Substances Act and conspiracy in regard to the death of Karnamaya Mongar. The report states: “Gosnell’s contempt for the law and his patients cost Karnamaya Mongar her life. Her death was the direct result of deliberate and dangerous conduct by Gosnell and his staff.”[82]

Gosnell, West, and Hampton – charged with hindering apprehension, and lying to the police, medical practitioners, and the grand jury about the circumstances of Mongar’s death (Hampton was also charged with perjury in the same matter);

Gosnell – recommended to be charged with abuse of corpses, in regards to the “mutilat[ion of] babies and fetuses by cutting off their feet” and the “bizarre” storage of parts of fetal bodies in around 30 jars and other containers at his practice; his explanation that this was done for possible paternity cases was “rejected out of hand”.[83]

The Grand Jury also concluded that “Illegality was so integral to the operation of the Women’s Medical Society that the business itself was a corrupt organization” (18 Pa.C.S. § 911, “based on a pattern of racketeering activity”):[84]

Gosnell and Baldwin – charged with corrupting the morals of a minor, by hiring her 15-year-old daughter as a staff member, who was “required to work 50-hour weeks, starting after school until past midnight, during which she was exposed to the full horrors of Gosnell’s practice”.

Of Gosnell himself, the report concluded,

We believe, given the manner in which Gosnell operated, that he killed the vast majority of babies that he aborted after 24 weeks. We cannot, however, recommend murder charges for all of these cases. In order to constitute murder, the act must involve a baby who was born alive. Because files were falsified or removed from the facility and possibly destroyed, we cannot substantiate all of the individual cases in which charges might otherwise have resulted.”[85]

The report also examined the failings of official parties, and the key findings, analyzed in two categories:[86]

“Janice Staloski of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, who personally participated in the 1992 site visit, but decided to let Gosnell slide on the violations that were already evident then. She eventually rose to become director of the division that was supposed to regulate abortion providers, but never looked at Gosnell despite specific complaints from lawyers, a doctor, and a medical examiner. After she was nonetheless promoted, her successor as division director, Cynthia Boyne, failed to order an investigation of the clinic even when Karnamaya Mongar died there. Senior legal counsel Kenneth Brody insisted that the department had no legal obligation to monitor abortion clinics, even though it exercised such a duty until the Ridge administration, and exercised it again as soon as Gosnell became big news. The agency’s head lawyer, chief counsel Christine Dutton, defended the department’s indifference: ‘People die,’ she said.”

“Lawyers at the Pennsylvania Department of State behaved in the same fashion. Attorneys Mark Greenwald, Charles Hartwell, David Grubb, Andrew Kramer, William Newport, Juan Ruiz, and Kerry Maloney were confronted with a growing pile of disquieting facts about Gosnell, including a detailed, inside account from a former employee (Marcella Choung, 2001[87]), and a 22-year-old dead woman. Every time, though, they managed to dismiss the evidence as immaterial… until the facts hit the fan.”

Recommendations

The Department of Health should explicitly regulate and annually inspect abortion practices, and examine patient files, licenses, and equipment on-site;

Second-trimester abortions should be performed or supervised by doctors who are board-certified obstetrics and gynecology;

The Department of State “must repair its review process”, including easier reporting, confidentiality, post-investigation response, with cases automatically checked against past records, malpractice databases, and full past history;

Reports about individual doctors checked against reports of medical offices where they worked, and vice versa;

The Department of Public Health “should do at least as much to control infectious medical waste as it does to inspect swimming pools”;

The conclusions finished by examining the extent to which legislation had been inadequate, and the scope for legislative change, concluding that:[88]

Statutory changes are necessary as well. Infanticide and third-trimester abortion are serious crimes. The two-year statute of limitations currently applicable for these offenses is inadequate to their severity. The limitations period for late abortion should be extended to five years; infanticide, like homicide, should have none. Impersonating a physician is also a serious, and potentially very dangerous, act. Yet under current law it is not a crime at all. An appropriate criminal provision should be enacted. There may also be other statutory and regulatory revisions that we, as lay people, have not thought to consider. Legislative hearings may be appropriate to further examine these issues.[89]

Trial

In 2011, Gosnell, his wife Pearl, and eight other clinic employees were charged in the case.[90] Eight, including Gosnell’s wife, subsequently pleaded guilty, most of whom would testify against Gosnell,[91] and three of these pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, carrying a 20- to 40-year term.[91] A gag order was imposed on both defense and prosecution in April 2011, to bar them from talking to the media before the trial.[92] In December 2011 Pearl Gosnell pleaded guilty to performing illegal abortions, conspiracy, criminal conspiracy and corrupt organization;[93] due to spousal privilege, she will not have to testify against Gosnell, although she may still go to prison.[90] She had testified to the grand jury that she alone assisted on Sundays, and that her role was to “help do the instruments” in the procedure room and to monitor patients in the recovery room. Another employee testified that she assisted with late-term abortions “on Sundays or days we were closed [to] do special cases.”[94]

As a result, the only employee on trial with Gosnell is Eileen O’Neill, an employee who allegedly held herself out as a doctor at the clinic when she was not licensed. Her lawyer told jurors she never did so, and performed medical duties only under Gosnell’s orders.[44]

On March 18, 2013, opening statements were given in a Philadelphia court. On April 23, after the prosecution had rested its case, the judge dismissed three of the seven first-degree murder charges (the next day the judge reinstated charges related to one and dismissed another, explaining the wrong charge had been mistakenly dismissed[95][96]), the one count of infanticide, and all five charges of abusing a corpse Gosnell had been charged with, as well as six of the nine charges of theft by deception faced by O’Neill.[97] No formal ruling has yet been given for these dismissals. Media sources following the trial have suggested that there may have been insufficient evidence of post-procedure life to sustain charges in law. Although prosecutors had argued the movements were voluntary and therefore signs of life,[98][99] it was argued that the evidence offered by prosecutors were equally capable of being interpreted in some or all of these as single autonomous post-mortem motor movements or spasms instead of clinical signs of life, and additionally that none of the seven were capable of being alive as all had been previously killed clinically in utero by means of drugs as part of the procedure.[98][99] Also, although staff had used descriptions such as “jumping” and “screaming” in their testimony, Gosnell’s defense noted that testimony had shown only single movements or breaths, stating that the testimony was not evidence of “the movements of a live child”, and the medical examiner had also testified that tests could not determine whether or not any of the 47 fetuses found had been born alive due to tissue deterioration.[100][101][102]

The remaining four first-degree murder charges could still have led to the death penalty. The 3rd-degree murder charges in the death of Karnamaya Mongar, the racketeering charge, and over 200 charges related to multiple violations of abortion law were also left standing.[103][104] Gosnell’s defense attorney rested his case summarily without calling or questioning any witnesses, and without Gosnell taking the stand in his defense, leaving the defense case until final arguments (under US law, a defendant may choose not to take the stand; if so then the jury is instructed that no inference or assumption may be drawn from this).[105] O’Neill also did not testify in her defense.[95][105] The case went to jury deliberation on April 30, 2013.[106]

Defendants, related charges, verdicts and sentencing

Gosnell was charged with seven counts of first-degree murder (reduced to 4 counts at trial) and one count of third-degree murder, as well as infanticide (dismissed at trial), 5 counts of abusing a corpse (all dismissed at trial), multiple counts of conspiracy, criminal solicitation and violation of a state law that forbids abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy.[97][104][107] The non-murder charges included 24 counts of violating Pennsylvania’s Abortion Act by performing illegal third-trimester abortions, 227 counts of violating a 24-hour waiting-period requirement, failing to counsel patients, and racketeering.[104] His co-defendants were:

Steven Massof, a medical school graduate who lacked a license, pleaded guilty in November 2011 to two counts of 3rd-degree murder for the deaths of two babies who had been born alive.[108]

Pearl Gosnell, Kermit’s wife, was charged with abortion at 24 or more weeks, conspiracy and participating in a corrupt organization. She pleaded guilty to these charged on Dec. 13, 2011.[109][110] Pearl Gosnell was sentenced to 7 to 23 months in prison.[111]

Steven Massof and Eileen O’Neill, both medical school graduates without proper licensing to be doctors in Pennsylvania. Gosnell presented these employees as physicians and billed insurance companies more on this allegation. All three are charged with theft by deception for these acts.[112]

Kareema Cross, who testified at the state trial she had seen at least ten babies breathe after being aborted who were then killed, pleaded guilty to federal drug charges over improper distribution of pain medicine from Gosnell’s clinic.[113]

On May 13, 2013, the jury reported that they were deadlocked on two counts.[114] After returning to deliberations, the jury convicted Gosnell of 3 counts of murder, one count of involuntary manslaughter, and many lesser counts. He was found not guilty on one of the counts of murder.[115][116]

On May 14, 2013, Gosnell struck a deal with prosecutors in which he agreed to waive all his appeal rights regarding his conviction on the day earlier. In exchange, prosecutors allowed Gosnell to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.[117]

On May 15, 2013, Gosnell was sentenced to life in prison for the third child’s murder.[118]

Impact and aftermath

Other bodies and persons claiming to have made reports

In April 2011 the University of Pennsylvania Health System claimed as early as 1999 that they had provided to authorities reports about botched procedures by Gosnell. The only case for which any reports were produced was that of Semika Shaw, a 22-year-old, who died at the University of Pennsylvania hospital as a result of bleeding and sepsis caused by a botched procedure by Gosnell. Gosnell’s insurers settled a lawsuit with family members of Shaw for $900,000. The health system also claims other undocumented reports were made orally, for which they did not have records.[119]

Regulatory and legislative impact

The Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure Committee of the Pennsylvania State Senate, led by Robert M. Tomlinson, began a hearing in February 2011 to look into the failure of the Pennsylvania Department of State — which is responsible for licensing doctors — to provide any oversight of Gosnell’s activities. At the same time, the Public Health and Welfare Committee of the state Senate, chaired by Pat Vance, conducted hearings on the Pennsylvania State Health Department’s failure to put a stop to Gosnell’s activities.[120]

In part as a result of the grand jury report on Gosnell, in late 2011, Pennsylvania passed a law, SB 732, that places abortion clinics under the same health and safety regulations as other outpatient surgical centers. Among those who supported the bill was Democrat Margo L. Davidson, whose cousin Semika Shaw died as a result of procedures done by Gosnell.[121][122] Davidson specifically linked her support for the additional regulations to her cousin’s death, which she attributed to poor medical practices.[123]

In May 2013, as a result of the Kermit Gosnell case, Representative Joe Pitts (R-Pennsylvania), chair of the health-matters subcommittee of the United States House of Representatives‘ Energy and Commerce Committee, began an inquiry into states’ oversight of abortion clinics.[124]

Non-legislative actions resulting from the case

In February 2011 Pennsylvania Governor and former State Attorney GeneralTom Corbett fired six employees and commenced action to fire eight others where for legal or contractual reasons, more extensive dismissal procedures were required. These included Basil Merenda, the acting head of the Pennsylvania Department of State, Christine Dutton, the Department of Health’s chief counsel (who, in reaction to being questioned why the Department did not react to a death at Gosnell’s clinic, said “people die”), and Stacy Mitchell, a deputy secretary in the health department (whom the grand jury cited as a key figure in the Health Department’s indifference to, and non-regulation of, abortion clinics). Some of the people most connected by the grand jury report with the failure of the government to act, such as Janice Staloski, had retired by this point and so no action was taken against them.[128]

Civil cases

The family of Karnamaya Mongar has brought a wrongful death suit against Gosnell and sought to freeze his assets to prevent him from transferring them to other people to avoid paying.[129] As of April 2013 the suit is still pending.[130]

Media coverage and public reactions

Gosnell’s arrest has been the subject of much public comment[131] and expressions of condemnation and shock by senior public figures of all parties. Mayor Michael Nutter (D-PA) said, “I think it’s quite clear that, if these allegations are true, we’ve had a monster living in our midst” while vowing to watch the city’s remaining abortion clinics more closely.[132] Outgoing Governor Ed Rendell (D-PA) criticized Department of Health officials saying, “I was flabbergasted to learn that the Department of Health did not think their authority to protect public health extended to clinics offering abortion services”,[133] while incoming Governor Tom Corbett (R-PA) stated through a spokesperson that he was “appalled at the inaction on the part of the Health Department and the Department of State,”[134] and District Attorney of the city of Philadelphia R. Seth Williams said “My comprehension of the English language can’t adequately describe the barbaric nature of Dr. Gosnell… Pennsylvania is not a third-world country… There were several oversight agencies that stumbled upon and should have shut down Kermit Gosnell long ago.”[135]

Gosnell also practiced in other states, including Delaware. In January 2011, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden (D-Delaware) promised a wide-ranging investigations into the abortions Gosnell performed in Delaware saying; “I’m disturbed by the allegations that were handed up by the grand jury in Philadelphia”.[136]

A spokesperson for the National Abortion Federation, an association of abortion providers, noted that Gosnell had been rejected for membership following inspection, because his clinics did not meet appropriate standards of care, but that “they’d cleaned the place up and hired an RN [registered nurse] for our visit. We only saw first-trimester procedures.”[53] She adding that “Unfortunately, some women don’t know where to turn. You sometimes have substandard providers preying on low-income women who don’t know that they do have other (safe) options.”[137] A spokesperson for Planned Parenthood in Southeastern Pennsylvania, condemned Gosnell, saying, “We would condemn any physician who does not follow the law or endangers anyone’s health… All women should have access to high-quality care when they are vulnerable and facing difficult decisions.”[138] Dayle Steinberg, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, says she knew that Gosnell had provided abortions in Philadelphia for many years, but says she hadn’t heard of any problems at his clinic until the allegations surfaced.[139] She has been quoted as stating that “when Gosnell was in practice, women would sometimes come to Planned Parenthood for services after first visiting Gosnell’s West Philadelphia clinic, and would complain to staff about the conditions there. We would always encourage them to report it to the Department of Health.” [140] She clarified that “when Gosnell was arrested, I asked our staff if anyone had ever heard of him, and clinic staff members reported that a few women over the years said they were concerned about the uncleanliness of his facility and came to Planned Parenthood instead… if we had heard anything remotely like the conditions that have since come to light about Gosnell’s facility, of course we would have alerted the state and other authorities”.[141]

Kermit Gosnell himself gave an interview to Fox 29 in February 2011,[50] in which he stated that:

“I expect to be vindicated.”

[Regarding the allegations] “to tell you the truth, I hope to read them in 3 to 6 months […] because I have lived through negative publicity before.”

“It’s something I have personally experienced several times before where my surgical abilities have been challenged, where the choices that I have made have not always been perfect.”

“If you are not making mistakes, you are not really attempting to do something, so I think that my patients are aware that I do my very best by them.”

“The standard that I share with everyone that, I frequently say is that I provide the same care that I would provide my own daughter I feel.”

“I have a story to tell. […] my work to the community is of value.”

Gosnell reported that he received outpouring of support: “letters, I have gotten wonderful little messages of support, and confidence that I am a good person will prevail.”

While Kirsten Powers is credited by some for drawing media coverage to the Gosnell trial, Dave Weigel at Slate.com reported it was conservatives’ aggressive use of social media, especially Twitter, that “goaded” the press into covering the trial in Philadelphia. According to Weigel, Troy Newman, president of the Kansas-based pro-life Operation Rescue, had organized a Twitter campaign using “#Gosnell” to break the “Gosnell Media Blackout.” Key to that social media campaign was a picture of rows of empty media seats in the Gosnell courtroom taken by Calkins Media columnist J.D. Mullane.[143]

Mullane told Weigel he was struck by the absence of media at the trial, and took out his iPhone and snapped the picture, tweeting it later that night.

“Mullane retweeted the photo a few more times, with different captions, because it had been packed into a snowball (of criticism)” which included Powers’ column for USA Today, Weigel wrote. The empty seats photograph was used by pro-life activists to show “proof” of media dereliction. Weigel wrote: “It worked. An estimated 106,000 #Gosnell tweets later, on April 15, Mullane reported that major networks and newspapers had sent their reporters to cover the trial—Fox News, the New York Times, the Washington Post.”

Writing for The Washington Post, Melinda Henneberger responded that “we didn’t write more because the only abortion story most outlets ever cover in the news pages is every single threat or perceived threat to abortion rights. In fact, that is so fixed a view of what constitutes coverage of that issue that it’s genuinely hard, I think, for many journalists to see a story outside that paradigm as news. That’s not so much a conscious decision as a reflex, but the effect is one-sided coverage”. Explaining why some of her colleagues did not report on the story, Henneberger wrote, “One colleague viewed Gosnell’s alleged atrocities as a local crime story, though I can’t think of another mass murder, with hundreds of victims, that we ever saw that way. Another said it was just too lurid, though that didn’t keep us from covering Jeffrey Dahmer, or that aspiring cannibal at the NYPD.”[144] Writing for Bloomberg View, Jeffrey Goldberg said that this story “upsets a particular narrative about the reality of certain types of abortion, and that reality isn’t something some pro-choice absolutists want to discuss”.[145]

The Los Angeles Times,[146]The Atlantic,[147]Slate,[148] and Time[149] all published opinion columns where the writer thought the incident was not getting as much media coverage as it deserved. Megan McArdle explains that she didn’t cover it because it made her ill, but also how being pro-choice influenced writers saying “most of us tend to be less interested in sick-making stories if the sick-making was done by ‘our side,'” saying, “this story should have been covered much more than it was — covered as a national policy issue, not a ‘local crime story.'”[150] Martin Baron, The Post’s executive editor, claims he wasn’t aware of the story until Thursday, 11 April, when readers began emailing him about it, saying “I wish I could be conscious of all stories everywhere, but I can’t be”.[151] They ultimately decided that, in fact, the story warranted attention because of “the seriousness and scope of the alleged crimes and because this was a case that resonated in policy arguments and national politics”, adding “In retrospect, we regret not having staffed the trial sooner. But, as you know, we don’t have unlimited resources, and […] there is a lot of competition for our staff’s attention”.[151] He insisted that “we never decide what to cover for ideological reasons, no matter what critics might claim. Accusations of ideological motives are easy to make, even if they’re not supported by the facts”.[151]The New York Times also acknowledged the lack of coverage and reported on the online campaign and subsequent increase in coverage of the case.[152] While Powers’ piece clearly sparked debate among journalists, Katherine Bindley also highlights contrasting views,[153] as does Paul Farhi.[151] A column on Salon.com questioned whether the Gosnell case was an example of liberal media bias, saying that conservative media and politicians had also given little attention to the story until April 2013.[154]

In April 2013, 71 other Members of Congress joined Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn in a letter condemning the media “blackout” on the Gosnell trial.[155][156]

As well, the filmmakers wrote a book titled, Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer. The book was released on January 24, 2017.[165][166] The book quickly rose to the number three spot on Amazon’s “Best Seller” list and number one on their “Hot New Releases” list. [167]

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Party Affiliation

By BEN SHAPIRO

On Saturday, National Review senior editor Jonah Goldbergpenned a controversial column in which he rejected Donald Trump and his followers from the conservative movement. “Well, if this is the conservative movement now, I guess you’re going to have to count me out,” Goldberg writes.

Goldberg goes on to suggest that the embrace of Trump perverts conservatism itself, broadening the definition of the movement in order to include Trump.

Goldberg, whom I consider a friend and a brilliant commentator, is right to label Trump insufficiently conservative. I have specifically argued that Trump ought not be the nominee thanks to his insufficient conservatism—so has Michelle Malkin, so have numerous other conservative commentators.

But here is the sad truth: Many of the same people appalled by Trump made Trump’s candidacy possible.

Trump is a product of a conservatism-less Republicanism, prepared for and championed by the intellectual elites who told us to ignore Mitt Romney’s creation of Romneycare and

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 43% ’s campaign finance reform, who told conservatives to shut up and get in line, who explained that conservatives had to throw over Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 96% and his government shutdowns in favor of

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 52% and his pathological inability to take a hard stand against President Obama using the tools at his disposal.

Over at National Review, even as Goldberg condemns Trump for his non-conservatism, another columnist simultaneously urges a ticket with Governor “God Told Me To Use Obamacare Money To Expand Medicaid” John Kasich (R-OH) and Sen. Marco “Immigration Gang of Eight” Rubio (R-FL). Goldberg himself championed Romney’s candidacy because he wasn’t a conservative, writing back in 2012:

Even if Romney is a Potemkin conservative (a claim I think has merit but is also exaggerated), there is an instrumental case to be made for him: It is better to have a president who owes you than to have one who claims to own you. A President Romney would be on a very short leash.

Why wouldn’t the same logic apply to Trump?

And while Goldberg today raps Trump on the knuckles for his support of socialized medicine, going so far as to label opposition to such policy a “core tenet of American conservatism from Day One,” Goldberg used Romneycare as a point in favor of Romney in 2012: “He is a man of duty and purpose. He was told to ‘fix’ health care in ways Massachusetts would like… He did it all. The man does his assignments.”

Goldberg today says that Trump doesn’t deserve to be a part of the conservative movement, and his followers have excised themselves from the conservative community. But in 2012, he warned that anyone saying the same of Mitt Romney threatened the possibility of conservative victory. In 2012, Goldberg explicitly opposed purges and purity tests:

That’s certainly reason enough to be mad at the establishment. But replacing the current leadership with even more ardent, passionate and uncompromising conservatives is far from a guaranteed formula for making the Republican Party more popular or powerful. To do that, the GOP needs to persuade voters to become a little more conservative, not to hector already-conservative politicians to become even more pure as they go snipe-hunting for the Rockefeller Republicans.

What requirements did Mitt Romney, and John Kasich, and John McCain, and Mitch McConnell fulfill that Trump does not? Goldberg is right that Trump has “no ideological guardrails whatsoever” when it comes to taxes and “knows less than most halfway-decent DC interns about foreign policy.” Goldberg could have added that Trump has made an enormous amount of money utilizing eminent domain, that he supports affirmative action, and that he opposes free trade, among other pernicious positions. There is a reason that this weekend full-fledged economic idiot Paul Krugman endorsed Trump’s economic policies.

The question is: Why are so many Republicans backing him? There are two answers: first, he’s tough on illegal immigration, the only issue many conservatives believe matters. The second answer is more telling, however: Trump has heavy support because Republicans rejected ideological purity a long time ago. And here’s the irony: Goldberg and others can’t call Tea Partiers to Jesus on Trump because, according to polls, Tea Partiers don’t support Trump in outsized numbers. The reality is that the same people who don’t like ideological litmus tests support Trump. Just a few weeks back, the Washington Post concluded that Trump’s fans “are more moderate than Tea Partiers were,” significantly more likely to call themselves Republicans than Tea Partiers were, far younger and less religious and blue collar than Tea Partiers.

As Sallah from Raiders of the Lost Ark would put it, “Jonah, you’re digging in the wrong place.”

If you want to target Trump supporters for failing to take conservatism seriously, try starting with those who don’t take conservatism seriously. Most of them were trained in the acceptability of “victory before conservatism” Republicanism by the some of the same folks now deriding the poll-leading Trump.

I’ve lived this story before: I’m from California. Trump is Arnold Schwarzenegger without the Austrian accent. He’s a know-nothing with a huge name and a Teflon personality, and people get behind him because he’s a celebrity and because victory matters more than principle. I know that’s so, because I made the same mistake with regard to Schwarzenegger, explicitly endorsing him in spite of his insufficient conservatism on the grounds that voters in California would get used to voting Republican.

That was a failure. Schwarzenegger was terrible, and what followed him was a shift to radical leftism unthinkable in the early days of his candidacy. I learned that lesson, and in January 2012, I said that the conservative embrace of Mitt Romney would pervert the movement itself, in the same way Goldberg now accuses Trump of perverting conservatism:

Yes, defeating horrible politicians like Barack Obama is the top goal — but that doesn’t justify redefining conservatism entirely…. When we deliberately broaden conservatism to encompass government-forced purchase of health insurance or raising taxes or appointing liberal judges or enforcing same-sex marriage or using taxpayer money to bail out business or pushing trade barriers, we destroy conservatism from within. If we do that, why would our politicians even bother to pay lip service to the standard?

Like Goldberg, I fear the same from Trump: I fear that he’ll be a wild card with no governing principle, that even if he were to win, he’d irrevocably split conservatism. But I also recognize that Trump isn’t a departure for Republicans abandoning principle: he’s the political love child of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, a combination of the non-conservative “victory mentality” and the arrogance of a dictatorial left many conservatives want to see countered with fire.

In sum, I’m happy to welcome establishment Republicans who want to revivify conservative litmus tests to the party. But from now on, let’s be consistent: if we’re going to oust Trump based on his ideology, those requirements can’t be waived for others.

The Words Trump Doesn’t Use

by JIM GERAGHTY

Did you ever think you would see the day when the GOP front-runner rarely uttered the words “freedom” and “liberty”? Perhaps some Republicans can be accused of loving liberty and freedom too much — or at least using those words as rhetorical crutches. Donald Trump is not one of them. The current GOP presidential front-runner rarely uses the words “freedom” or “liberty” in his remarks at all.

Trump didn’t use the words “freedom” or “liberty” in his announcement speech. He didn’t use those words in his Nashville speech on August 29, or his Nashville rally on August 21, or his appearance at the Iowa State Fair on August 15, or his rally and news conference in New Hampshire on August 14, or his news conference in Birch Run, Mich., or his press conference in Laredo, Texas, on July 23.

He didn’t use those words while discussing his signing of the Republican National Committee’s pledge last Thursday, or in his contentious interview with Hugh Hewitt the same day.

Trump did use the term “free-market” once during his Meet the Press interview with Chuck Todd, in a defense of his qualified support for affirmative action: “Well, you know, you have to also go free market. You have to go capability. You have to do a lot of things. But I’m fine with affirmative action.” The word “liberty” didn’t even come up.

This is an unusual vocabulary for a Republican front-runner. It wasn’t that long ago that grass-roots conservatives showed up at Tea Party rallies with signs reading, “Liberty: All the Stimulus We Need.” The Tea Party named itself after an event organized by the Sons of Liberty. The GOP platform declares the party was “born in opposition to the denial of liberty.”

Trump’s lexicon is another indicator of the dramatic shift he would represent in moving the Republican party from a libertarian-leaning one to a populist one. During the Obama era, self-identified libertarians have asked whether the Tea Party and the GOP are truly dedicated to liberty and individual rights, or if their real objection to big government is that it’s controlled by Democrats. The embrace of Trump suggests their skepticism was well-founded.

It’s no accident that Trump has been labeled a populist by outlets across the political spectrum, from The American Interest to NPR. His speeches and off-the-cuff remarks make clear that he doesn’t see the world through the lens of free and unfree; he sees it through the lens of strength and weakness: For me, conservatism as it pertains to our country is fiscal. We have to be strong and secure and get rid of our debt. The military has to be powerful and not necessarily used but very powerful. I am on the sort of a little bit social side of conservative when it comes — I want people to be taken care of from a health-care standpoint. But to do that, we have to be strong. I want to save Social Security without cuts. I want a strong country. And to me, conservative means a strong country with very little debt.

The man whose slogan is “Make America Great Again” doesn’t seem particularly worried about a Leviathan state infringing upon its citizens’ liberties. He sees a disordered society whose people are threatened by violent criminals coming across the border, undermined by poor negotiation in foreign-trade and security agreements, and asked by free-riding allies to shoulder way too much of the burden in a dangerous world.

That philosophy is dramatically different from the liberty-focused message Republicans have become accustomed to since the rise of the Tea Party in 2009. And, at least for now, it has made Trump the front-runner by a wide margin.

VoteMatch

Candidate’s Political Philosophy

The below is a way of thinking about the candidate’s political philosophy by dividing the candidate’s VoteMatch answers into “social” and “economic” questions. It is only a theory – please take it with a grain of salt!Social Questions: Liberals and libertarians agree in choosing the less-government answers, while conservatives and populists agree in choosing the more-restrictive answers.

Economic Questions: Conservatives and libertarians agree in choosing the less-government answers, while liberals and populists agree in choosing the more-restrictive answers.

Candidate’s Score

The candidate scored the following on the VoteMatch questions:

Social Score

25%

Economic Score

78%

Where the Candidate Fits In

Where the candidate’s Social score meets the Economic score on the grid below is the candidate’s political philosophy. Based on the above score, the candidate is a Libertarian-Leaning Conservative.

Social ScoreThis measures how much the candidate believes government should intervene in people’s personal lives or on social issues. These issues include health, morality, love, recreation, prayer and other activities that are not measured in dollars.

A high score (above 60%) means the candidate believes in tolerance for different people and lifestyles.

A low score (below 40%) means the candidate believes that standards of morality & safety should be enforced by government.

Economic Score

This measures how much the candidate believes government should intervene in people’s economic lives. Economic issues include retirement funding, budget allocations, and taxes.

A high score (above 60%) means the candidate believes in personal responsibility for financial matters, and that free-market competition is better for people than central planning by the government.

A low score (below 40%) means the candidate believes that a good society is best achieved by the government redistributing wealth. The candidate believes that government’s purpose is to decide which programs are good for society, and how much should be spent on each program.

This measures how much the candidate believes government should intervene in people’s economic lives. Economic issues include retirement funding, budget allocations, and taxes.

How We Score Candidates

How we determine a candidate’s stance on each VoteMatch question:

We collect up votes, excerpts from speeches, press releases, and so on, which are related to each question. Each of these are shown on the candidate’s VoteMatch table.

We assign an individual score for each item on the list. The scores can be: Strongly Favor, Favor, Neutral/Mixed, Oppose, Strongly Oppose. The scoring terms refer to the text of the question, not whether the candidate strongly opposed a bill, for example.

If the average is above 1, the overall answer to the question is Strongly Favor.

If the average is above 0, the overall answer to the question is Favor.

If the average is exactly 0, the overall answer to the question is Neutral.

If the average is below 0, the overall answer to the question is Oppose.

If the average is below -1, the overall answer to the question is Strongly Oppose.

When you do a VoteMatch quiz, your answers are compared to each candidates’ overall answer to come up with a matching percentage.

To get the political philosophy of the candidate, we sum up the answers on two scales, the Personal/Social scale and the Economic Scale. Some questions aren’t used in the political philosophy calculations.

The VoteMatch table indicates the number of scale points from each answer (any one question can provide from 0 to 10 scale points on one scale or the other).

The combination of social/moral scales and economic scales produces a political philosophy description. A more detailed explanation appears below.

Examples

The chart below indicates how four “hard-core” political philosophers would answer the questions. From this example, you can see how the candidate fits in with each philosophy. The candidate’s answers are on the left.

A “hard-core liberal” would answer social questions to minimize government involvement, but would answer economic questions to include government intervention.

A “hard-core libertarian” would answer both social and economic questions to minimize government involvement.

A “hard-core conservative” would answer social questions to include government intervention, but would answer economic questions to minimize government involvement.

A “hard-core populist” would answer both social and economic questions with proposals that include government intervention.

= Strongly Support = Support = No Opinion = Oppose = Strongly Oppose

Social Issues

The candidate

Hard-core Liberal

Hard-core Libertarian

Hard-Core Conservative

Hard-Core Populist

Question 1. Abortion is a woman’s unrestricted right

Question 3. Comfortable with same-sex marriage

Question 8. Human needs over animal rights

Question 12. Pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens

Question 17. Stay out of Iran

Question 4. Keep God in the public sphere

Question 9. Stricter punishment reduces crime

Question 15. Expand the military

Question 16. Stricter limits on political campaign funds

Question 19. Never legalize marijuana

= Strongly Support = Support = No Opinion = Oppose = Strongly Oppose

Economic Issues

The Candidate

Hard-core Liberal

Hard-core Libertarian

Hard-Core Conservative

Hard-Core Populist

Question 2. Legally require hiring women & minorities

Question 5. Expand ObamaCare

Question 11. Higher taxes on the wealthy

Question 18. Prioritize green energy

Question 20. Stimulus better than market-led recovery

Question 6. Privatize Social Security

Question 7. Vouchers for school choice

Question 10. Absolute right to gun ownership

Question 13. Support and expand Free Trade

Question 14. Maintain US sovereignty from UN

The Candidate

Hard-core Liberal

Hard-core Libertarian

Hard-Core Conservative

Hard-Core Populist

= Strongly Support = Support = No Opinion = Oppose = Strongly Oppose

Final Notes

To ensure balance among political viewpoints, we arranged the wording of the questions so that half the time, the answer involving more government is answered by “support”, and half the time by “oppose.” Hence, each of the “hard core” philosophers would choose “support” for 5 of the Social questions and for 5 of the Economic questions.

Many of these statements cross over the line between social issues and economic issues. And many people might answer what we call a “Social” issue based on economic reasoning. But we have tried to arrange a series of questions which separates the way candidates think about government activities in these two broad scales.

VoteMatch

Candidate’s Political Philosophy

The below is a way of thinking about the candidate’s political philosophy by dividing the candidate’s VoteMatch answers into “social” and “economic” questions. It is only a theory – please take it with a grain of salt!Social Questions: Liberals and libertarians agree in choosing the less-government answers, while conservatives and populists agree in choosing the more-restrictive answers.

Economic Questions: Conservatives and libertarians agree in choosing the less-government answers, while liberals and populists agree in choosing the more-restrictive answers.

Candidate’s Score

The candidate scored the following on the VoteMatch questions:

Social Score

18%

Economic Score

93%

Where the Candidate Fits In

Where the candidate’s Social score meets the Economic score on the grid below is the candidate’s political philosophy. Based on the above score, the candidate is a Hard-Core Conservative.

Social ScoreThis measures how much the candidate believes government should intervene in people’s personal lives or on social issues. These issues include health, morality, love, recreation, prayer and other activities that are not measured in dollars.

A high score (above 60%) means the candidate believes in tolerance for different people and lifestyles.

A low score (below 40%) means the candidate believes that standards of morality & safety should be enforced by government.

Economic Score

This measures how much the candidate believes government should intervene in people’s economic lives. Economic issues include retirement funding, budget allocations, and taxes.

A high score (above 60%) means the candidate believes in personal responsibility for financial matters, and that free-market competition is better for people than central planning by the government.

A low score (below 40%) means the candidate believes that a good society is best achieved by the government redistributing wealth. The candidate believes that government’s purpose is to decide which programs are good for society, and how much should be spent on each program.

This measures how much the candidate believes government should intervene in people’s economic lives. Economic issues include retirement funding, budget allocations, and taxes.

How We Score Candidates

How we determine a candidate’s stance on each VoteMatch question:

We collect up votes, excerpts from speeches, press releases, and so on, which are related to each question. Each of these are shown on the candidate’s VoteMatch table.

We assign an individual score for each item on the list. The scores can be: Strongly Favor, Favor, Neutral/Mixed, Oppose, Strongly Oppose. The scoring terms refer to the text of the question, not whether the candidate strongly opposed a bill, for example.

If the average is above 1, the overall answer to the question is Strongly Favor.

If the average is above 0, the overall answer to the question is Favor.

If the average is exactly 0, the overall answer to the question is Neutral.

If the average is below 0, the overall answer to the question is Oppose.

If the average is below -1, the overall answer to the question is Strongly Oppose.

When you do a VoteMatch quiz, your answers are compared to each candidates’ overall answer to come up with a matching percentage.

To get the political philosophy of the candidate, we sum up the answers on two scales, the Personal/Social scale and the Economic Scale. Some questions aren’t used in the political philosophy calculations.

The VoteMatch table indicates the number of scale points from each answer (any one question can provide from 0 to 10 scale points on one scale or the other).

The combination of social/moral scales and economic scales produces a political philosophy description. A more detailed explanation appears below.

Examples

The chart below indicates how four “hard-core” political philosophers would answer the questions. From this example, you can see how the candidate fits in with each philosophy. The candidate’s answers are on the left.

A “hard-core liberal” would answer social questions to minimize government involvement, but would answer economic questions to include government intervention.

A “hard-core libertarian” would answer both social and economic questions to minimize government involvement.

A “hard-core conservative” would answer social questions to include government intervention, but would answer economic questions to minimize government involvement.

A “hard-core populist” would answer both social and economic questions with proposals that include government intervention.

= Strongly Support = Support = No Opinion = Oppose = Strongly Oppose

Social Issues

The candidate

Hard-core Liberal

Hard-core Libertarian

Hard-Core Conservative

Hard-Core Populist

Question 1. Abortion is a woman’s unrestricted right

Question 3. Comfortable with same-sex marriage

Question 8. Human needs over animal rights

Question 12. Pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens

Question 17. Stay out of Iran

Question 4. Keep God in the public sphere

Question 9. Stricter punishment reduces crime

Question 15. Expand the military

Question 16. Stricter limits on political campaign funds

Question 19. Never legalize marijuana

= Strongly Support = Support = No Opinion = Oppose = Strongly Oppose

Economic Issues

The Candidate

Hard-core Liberal

Hard-core Libertarian

Hard-Core Conservative

Hard-Core Populist

Question 2. Legally require hiring women & minorities

Question 5. Expand ObamaCare

Question 11. Higher taxes on the wealthy

Question 18. Prioritize green energy

Question 20. Stimulus better than market-led recovery

Question 6. Privatize Social Security

Question 7. Vouchers for school choice

Question 10. Absolute right to gun ownership

Question 13. Support and expand Free Trade

Question 14. Maintain US sovereignty from UN

The Candidate

Hard-core Liberal

Hard-core Libertarian

Hard-Core Conservative

Hard-Core Populist

= Strongly Support = Support = No Opinion = Oppose = Strongly Oppose

Final Notes

To ensure balance among political viewpoints, we arranged the wording of the questions so that half the time, the answer involving more government is answered by “support”, and half the time by “oppose.” Hence, each of the “hard core” philosophers would choose “support” for 5 of the Social questions and for 5 of the Economic questions.

Many of these statements cross over the line between social issues and economic issues. And many people might answer what we call a “Social” issue based on economic reasoning. But we have tried to arrange a series of questions which separates the way candidates think about government activities in these two broad scales.

Story 1: Breaking News — Tsarnaev Sentenced To Death — Bring Back Prompt Public Executions — Hillary Clinton’s War On Babies A Woman’s Right To Kill Her Baby In The Womb — We Need To Kill More Black Babies? — Black Genocide and Eugenics Through Planned Parenthood — Videos

Abortion — Killing Babies in The Womb

“it’s not enough to legalize the procedure.

Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced.

And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.’

~ Hillary Clinton

I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision,”

“I am really in awe of her, there are a lot of lessons we can learn from her life”

~ Hillary Clinton

Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sentenced to death

Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Sentenced to Death

Boston Marathon Bomber “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev” Gets Death Penalty!

WestVirginia @150 – The Last Public Hanging in West Virginia 1897

Execution of N. Korea defense chief shows cruelty of regime： U.S. State Department

Hillary Clinton Says Religious Beliefs About Abortion Have to be Changed

Mao’s Great Famine HDTV great leap foward, history of china

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Stephanopoulos: “Bill Clinton has no character problem”

Three Reasons: The War Room

The War Room (1993)

George Stephanopoulos Interview, describing Clinton 2 of 2

The War Room Trailer

THE WAR ROOM with D.A. Pennebaker

Marvin Gaye “What’s Going On – What’s Happening Brother”

B.B. King – Blues Boys Tune

B. B. King – The Thrill Is Gone (Live at Montreux 1993)

Rock Me Baby-BB King/Eric Clapton/Buddy Guy/Jim Vaughn

B.B. King Dead at the Age of 89

Hillary Clinton’s keynote address at the 2015 Women in the World Summit

The presidential hopeful made her sixth appearance at the Women in the World Summit with a keynote address that challenged viewers to be champions for change.

Tsarnaev sentenced to death

By Milton J. Valencia, Patricia Wen, Kevin Cullen, John R. Ellement and Martin Finucane
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death Friday for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the terror attack on the finish line of the storied race that killed three people and injured more than 260 others.

Tsarnaev, 21, had been convicted last month in US District Court in Boston of 17 charges that carried the possibility of the death penalty.

The death sentence handed down Friday by the seven-woman, five-man jury came at the end of a lengthy, high-profile trial. Tsarnaev, who had taken a sharp turn from hopeful immigrant college student to radical jihadist, also was convicted in the murder of a police officer.

The April 15, 2013, bombing was one of the worst terror attacks in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.

Wearing a blazer and a collared shirt, Tsarnaev, as has been his habit for most of the trial, had no expression as a court clerk read the verdict sentencing him to death. The jury took 14 1/2 hours over three days to render its decision on the penalty.

View Story
Explore the evidence from the trial
A look at the witnesses, evidence, and key players in the trial.
Tsarnaev sentencing verdict form
Live updates from the courtroom

US District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. will impose the sentence at a hearing where Tsarnaev’s victims will be able to confront him and he also has the option of addressing the court.

After the verdict was announced, O’Toole told jurors, at least three of whom wiped away tears, “You should be justly proud of your service in this case.”

Those in the courtroom included Bill and Denise Richard, parents of 8-year-old Martin Richard of Dorchester, the youngest victim of the attack. Despite the devastating impact on their family, the Richards had called for life in prison, rather than death, for Tsarnaev.

Federal prosecutors said Tsarnaev was a remorseless self-radicalized terrorist who had participated in the bombing to make a political statement. Defense attorneys, seeking to save Tsarnaev’s life, portrayed him as the puppy dog-like follower of his troubled, violence-prone older brother, Tamerlan, who became obsessed with waging jihad and died in a firefight with police.

The jurors decided Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be sentenced to death for the people he was found directly responsible for killing when he placed one of the two homemade pressure cooker bombs: Martin Richard and 23-year-old Boston University graduate student Lingzi Lu.

The panel also had the right to sentence Tsarnaev to death for the second bomb placed by Tamerlan Tsarnaev, which killed Krystle Campbell, 29, of Arlington. But the jury chose not to impose the death penalty for her death.

The jurors also decided against imposing the death penalty for the subsequent murder of MIT Police Officer Sean A. Collier, whom the defense argued was shot to death by Tamerlan, not Dzhokhar.

The response to the death sentence was immediate from some of the hundreds of people who were injured.

One of those who turned to social media to share their views was Sydney Corcoran, who was seriously injured along with her mother, Celeste, who lost both legs in the blast.

“My mother and I think that NOW he will go away and we will be able to move on. Justice,’’ Sydney Corcoran wrote on the Twitter account. “In his own words, ‘an eye for an eye.’ “

Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh said in a statement that the “verdict provides a small amount of closure to the survivors, families, and all impacted by the violent and tragic events surrounding the 2013 Boston Marathon.’’

“We will forever remember and honor those who lost their lives and were affected by those senseless acts of violence on our City,’’ Walsh said. “Today, more than ever, we know that Boston is a City of hope, strength and resilience, that can overcome any challenge.”

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted last month of 30 charges, including 17 that carried a possible death penalty, in the first phase of the two-phase federal death penalty trial.

The defense never contested his guilt, focusing instead on the second phase of the trial, in which the jury was asked to determine whether Tsarnaev should get life in prison without parole or a death sentence. Over 11 days of testimony jurors heard from more than 60 witnesses, most of them called by the defense in an effort to humanize Tsarnaev.

Tsarnaev did not testify himself during either phase, showing little emotion as he sat in the courtroom, leaving him an inscrutable figure to the jury that decided his fate.

But in a statement he wrote when he was hiding from police several days after the bombing, he said he had acted because the US government was “killing our innocent civilians. … We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all.”

Prosecutor Steven Mellin, in his closing argument, cited a line from the note that said, “Now I don’t like killing innocent people, but in this case it is allowed.”

“These are the words of a terrorist who thought he did the right thing,” Mellin told jurors. “His actions have earned him a sentence of death.”

Defense attorney Judy Clarke suggested that Tsarnaev’s parents were emotionally, and later physically, absent from his life, and that Tamerlan had filled the void.

The root cause of the violence that erupted on Boylston Street on April 15, 2013, was Tamerlan, Clarke said.

“Dzhokhar would not have done this but for Tamerlan,” she said.

“We’re asking you to choose life,” she said. “Yes, even for the Boston Marathon bomber. It’s a sentence that reflects justice and mercy.”

The homemade pressure cooker bombs planted by the Tsarnaev brothers went off just before 3 p.m. at the race, a colorful rite of spring in which thousands of runners, including top competitors from around the world, stream down the course into the heart of the city.

In addition to the three people killed, more than 260 others were injured, including 17 who lost limbs. First responders and people in the crowd rushed forward to help, and the city’s renowned medical community saved lives that were hanging by a thread.

A massive manhunt followed that ended several days later in a violent, chaotic showdown. After authorities released their pictures, Tsarnaev, who was 19 at the time, and his 26-year-old brother murdered Collier while he sat in his cruiser on the night of April 18, 2013, in an unsuccessful attempt to get a second gun.

When police caught up with the brothers in Watertown, just outside the city, in the early hours of April 19, the brothers hurled more deadly bombs and fired dozens of shots at police. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died after being shot by police and run over by his own brother as he made his escape.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev slipped away from the legions of police who swarmed to the area as the governor, in an unprecedented step, urged residents of Boston, Watertown and other nearby areas to stay indoors and “shelter in place.” But Tsarnaev was ultimately captured later in the day, hiding in a boat stored in a Watertown back yard, where he had written the note explaining his actions. A stunned region breathed a sigh of relief.

People in Boston and beyond rallied together after the attacks, expressing sympathy and offering support to the bombing victims. At the same time, questions were raised and investigations launched into why the attacks weren’t prevented.

One mystery remaining at the heart of the case was how Dzhokhar Tsarnaev transformed from a hard-working teenager to a failing college student who joined a deadly terrorist plot.

“If you expect me to have an answer, a simple clean answer, I don’t have it,” Clarke said in her closing argument.

Tsarnaev arrived in America with his family when he was 9 years old. Jurors heard from his teachers in Cambridge that as a young boy, he was an A student, smart, popular, and kind. He became captain of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School wrestling team and went on to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and witnesses described him as a laid-back, and fun-loving college student.

But jurors also heard about Tsarnaev’s upbringing in a dysfunctional immigrant Chechen family that held to old cultural traditions that gave outsized rank to the oldest brother. And an expert on Chechnya described how that country’s struggles for independence became intertwined over the last two decades with the global jihad movement by Islamic militants.

When his parents returned to Russia in 2012, the jihad-obsessed Tamerlan was the only adult figure in his life, the defense said.

Prosecutors rejected the idea that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had influenced his young brother.

“These weren’t youthful crimes,” said prosecutor William Weinreb. “There was nothing immature or impulsive about them. These were political crimes, designed to punish the United States . . . by killing and mutilating innocent civilians on US soil.”

Governor Charlie Baker met reporters at the State House after the verdict, but refused to say whether he believed the death sentence was the right choice to have been made. Instead, he said, the verdict resulted from the persistence of the 12 jurors who were in court day after day and for 10 weeks.

“This was their call,’’ he said.

As a parent and husband, Baker said he was stunned by the “randomness” of the bombings. He also said that the region would be reminded about the bombings every April when the Marathon is held.

“I think it will be a long time before this event and all that came with it ever lands in my rear view mirror,’’ Baker said. “It changed the Marathon and thereby by definition, changed Boston as well.’’

He said that he hopes some closure, some healing will be forthcoming for anyone connected to the bombings.

Hillary Clinton Reaffirms Her Commitment to Women’s Rights

At Tina Brown’s Women in the World conference, the presidential hopeful spoke about the obstacles women still face in this country and abroad.

Today at Tina Brown’s Women in the World summit, presidential hopeful and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took the stage to reaffirm her commitment to women’s and girls’ rights, and outlined what will likely be her talking points on women, girls, and minorities as she travels the country trying to gain voter support in the coming months.

“It’s not just enough for some women to get ahead,” Clinton said, adding that all women need support, “no matter where you live and who you are.”

Clinton outlined issues facing women from birth through retirement, noting that “all the evidence tells us that despite the enormous obstacles that remain, there has never been a better time in history to be born female.” But when women enter the workforce, she said, they face a pay gap, which is particularly wide for women of color. She pointed to the recent Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision to assert that a woman’s boss should not determine what kind of health care she can access.Sexual assault on college campuses and in the military remains a pressing issue in need of legislative solutions, Clinton said. And she criticized discrimination in retirement benefits, saying, “When we deny women access to retirement that is secure, when we continue as we do to discriminate against women in the Social Security system, we are leaving too many women on their own.”

The way forward, Clinton said — and presumably what she will campaign on — is to embrace those who have long been marginalized in American society.

“We move forward when gay and transgender women are embraced as our colleagues and friends, not fired from good jobs because of who they love and who they are,” she said. Immigrants too, Clinton said, need protections and a path to citizenship. Striking a populist tone, Clinton highlighted economic inequality and the value of closing the wage gap — not just for women and their families, but for the U.S. economy as a whole.

Tina Brown’s Women in the World is a global conference, and Clinton emphasized her longtime advocacy for international women’s rights. She famously spoke at the 1995 Beijing conference on women’s rights, where she declared, “Women’s rights are human rights once and for all.” And at Women in the World today, she not only focused heavily on a domestic agenda centered on women’s rights, but mentioned her Beijing work, saying that when she gave her speech back in 1995, 189 countries came together to declare that “human rights are women rights and women rights are human rights, once and for all. And finally, the world began to listen.”

But, Clinton said, “Despite all this progress, we’re just not there yet. Yes, we’ve nearly closed the global gender gap in primary school, but secondary school remains out of reach for so many girls around the world. Yes, we’ve increased the number of countries prohibiting domestic violence, but still more than half the nations in the world have no such laws on the books, and an estimated one in three women still experience violence. Yes, we’ve cut the maternal mortality rate in half, but far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth.”

Clinton announced her run for president earlier this month and is the presumptive Democratic nominee. But when she sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, she moved away from her women’s rights bona fides, staking out a more gender-neutral position.

Now, running again eight years later, Clinton may be more inclined to embrace her potentially historic role as the first female candidate for president from a major political party. A month before she announced her intent to run, Clinton gave the keynote speech at the anniversary gala of EMILY’s List, an organization that raises money for pro-choice female politicians.

The Women in the World speech focused on women and girls, handily avoiding any mention ofallegations of inappropriate relationships between governments Clinton dealt with at the State Department and her family’s nonprofit, the Clinton Foundation. Those allegations originated in a book called Clinton Cash written by a Republican consultant, and the accusations of unethical behavior are now being investigated further by several media outlets, including The New York Times and TheWashington Post.

The Women in the World conference runs through Friday and features a long list of female activists and celebrities, including actresses Meryl Streep, Ashley Judd, Robin Wright, and Friedo Pinto; journalists Katie Couric, Poppy Harlow, Nora O’Donnell, and Mika Brzezinski; writers Tavi Gevinson, Jon Krakauer, and Janet Mock; and political leaders Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris.

Why Hillary Clinton’s pro-choice stance is incredibly racist

Hillary Clinton’s remarks last week at the sixth annual Women in The World Summit raised eyebrows when she openly admitted her goal to steamroll conservative religious beliefs to clear the way for abortion on demand.

As the Daily Caller reports, “Clinton said, ‘it’s not enough to legalize the procedure. Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.’”

Hillary is right about one thing. Laws can’t simply be created, they have to be enforced, and you can’t enforce the progressive agenda fully unless you completely uproot the “deep seated cultural codes and religious beliefs” of society. Then, and only then, will the liberals secure their progressive dream.

Law and morality cannot entirely be separated, because nearly all laws are based on moral standards: codes of right and wrong. Our Founders recognized this and made us “one nation under God” with certain rights endowed to us by our Creator.

Hillary’s progressive worldviews include the “woman’s right to choose” – death, actually. Death for the unborn. And primarily, death for unborn non-white babies.

While progressives are quick to label conservatives as racists, they support a genocidal industry that targets and slaughters African American babies more than any other race. This industry is abortion on demand.

According to CDC estimates, an average of “1,876 black babies are aborted every day in the United States.” Also, in 2011, the CDC released a shocking report that “black women were 3.7 times more likely to have an abortion..than non-Hispanic white women.”

In 2012, black women were almost five times as likely to have an abortion as white women. Among white women there were 138 abortions for every 1,000 births. Among black women, there were 501 abortions for every 1,000 births.”

Right now, we’re seeing Baltimore erupt in anger over the tragic death of Freddy Gray. The current narrative is that policemen are rampantly killing young black men. In fact, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) even went so far as to say the recent deaths of unarmed African-American men at the hands of police officers make it feel like “open season” on members of his race.

No sir, it’s open season on babies of your race. Self-inflicted.

According to the FBI there were about 33 homicides each day across the United States in 2013. That’s right, only 33 – whatever their color. But 1,876 black babies are aborted every day. In other words, 5,685% more black babies aborted by their mothers every day then there are homicides in the entire nation.

Rep. Johnson, I hope those figures alarm you. And Mrs. Clinton, aren’t you interested in changing that “deep-seated cultural code?”

In the end, when political leaders like Hillary Clinton promote the destruction of human life through abortion, they are willfully aiding Margaret Sanger’s eugenical dream to purify the population.

United States Abortion Statistics

54,559,615 abortions 1973–2011

Reported abortions in the United States, by year

The Alan Guttmacher Institute (a special affiliate to Planned Parenthood), which actively collects the abortion data directly from providers. All numbers reported are voluntary; there are no laws requiring abortionists to report to any national agency the numbers of abortions they perform. 2009-2011 are estimates of 1,212,400 annually.

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Obama The Betrayer of The Constitution and The American People

For The Record : Obama’s Abortion Bailout

Barack’s Big Abortion Bailout

Planned Parenthood’s Roots

Planned Parenthood’s Victims

Abortion and Black Genocide (Barack Obama and the Negro Project)

“…Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. 78% of their clinics are in minority communities. Blacks make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America. Are we being targeted? Isn’t that genocide? We are the only minority in America that is on the decline in population. If the current trend continues, by 2038 the black vote will be insignificant. Did you know that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a devout racist who created the Negro Project designed to sterilize unknowing black women and others she deemed as undesirables of society? The founder of Planned Parenthood said, “Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated.” Is her vision being fulfilled today? …”

“Ron Paul slammed Obama’s unconstitutional healthcare package on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch. The Congressman announced that he will introduce legislation to stop the government from forcing people to buy health insurance.
Ron Paul is America’s leading voice for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies.”

Ron Paul – Life is Precious

New Ron Paul Ad (Pro-Life): Staying on the Right Path

Ron Paul or Rick Santorum: Whom Should Catholics Choose?

Obama doesn’t believe in Natural law

Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell on Obamacare, Swine Flu and Big Government 8.18.09

President Obama will lose the Catholic vote and any chance he had to be re-elected President.

The Catholics are organizing to defeat Obama.

People of all religious faiths should wake up to this state threat to religious freedom.

Vote Obama and his radical progressive socialists out of office.

Repeal Obamacare by supporting and voting for only candidates for public office who want the repeal of Obamacare.

Ron Paul is defender of the Constitution and for liberty.

Both young voters and independents are the biggest supporters of Ron Paul.

Catholics and grandparents are now seeing the wisdom of voting for a defender of freedom of religion and the Constitution.

Death panels to kill the old and birth control, sterilization and abortion to kill the young.

The radical progressive socialists are dangerous to your health and life.

Obama birth-control rule stokes election-year fight

“…But Obama, at a meeting with Senate Democrats, reaffirmed his decision and was “not equivocating,” Senator Frank Lautenberg, who attended the closed-door session, told Reuters.

Republicans have seized upon the issue, seeing a chance to paint Obama as anti-religion and put him on the defensive at a time when signs of economic improvement appear to have energized his re-election bid.

The White House, caught off-guard by the fury of the response and now trying to calm objections, accused the Republicans of trying to make “political hay” out of the issue. It said it had begun outside discussions but gave no immediate sign of what, if any, concessions it might make.

“This attack … on religious freedom in our country cannot stand and will not stand,” Boehner vowed in a speech on the floor of his chamber.

The escalating fight centers on a provision in the 2010 healthcare law that requires health insurance to cover basic birth control services for women – even at Catholic charities, hospitals and universities.

Catholic bishops contend the policy infringes on religious liberty because the church does not condone the use of birth control pills or other contraceptives.

Boehner said if the president refuses to rescind the measure, Congress will do so legislatively.

But such a bill would have little chance of getting through a divided Congress. While Boehner may secure backing in the Republican-dominated House, he faces problems in the Senate, which is controlled by Obama’s fellow Democrats.

No matter how Congress responds, Obama is in a political bind. A retreat would anger his liberal base, while refusal to budge could alienate some Catholic voters. …”

Obamacare vs. the Catholics

The administration’s breach of faith.

By JONATHAN V. LAST

“…As soon as Sebelius released this decision, the Catholic church panicked. The Conference of Catholic Bishops reached out to the administration to explain the position in which it had put them. But the tone of their concern was largely friendly: Most Catholic leaders were convinced that the entire thing was a misunderstanding and that the policy​—​which was labeled an “interim” measure​—​would eventually be amended.

The reason for this optimism was that more than a few important Catholics had previously climbed out on a high branch for Obama politically, and for his health care reform as a matter of policy. Despite what you may read in the New York Times, most lay Catholics are nominally at home in the Democratic party. (Remember that a majority of Catholics voted for Obama in 2008.) And what is true of the laity goes double for those in religious life. In 2009, Notre Dame president Father John Jenkins welcomed President Obama as the school’s commencement speaker in the face of a heated student protest. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops mostly kept its powder dry during the fight over Obamacare, and very few members of the church hierarchy actively, or even tacitly, opposed the bill. Others, such as Sister Carol Keehan, the president of the Catholic Health Association, actually lobbied in favor of it, early and often. So most Catholics took the president at his word when he met with Archbishop Timothy Dolan last fall and assured him that when the final version of the policy was eventually released, any fears would be allayed.

That was their mistake. Obama telephoned Dolan on the morning of January 20 to inform him that the only concession he intended to offer in the final policy was to extend the deadline for conformity to August 2013. Every other aspect of the policy enunciated by Sebelius would remain rigidly in place.

It’s unclear whether Obama anticipated the blowback which resulted from this announcement, or perhaps even welcomed the fight. The liberal Catholic establishment nearly exploded. Sister Keehan was so horrified she threw her lot in with the more conservative Dolan in full-throated opposition to Obama. Cardinal Roger Mahony, the spectacularly liberal archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles, wrote, “I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience. . . . This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic community can muster.” Michael Sean Winters, the National Catholic Reporter’s leftist lion, penned a 1,800-word cri de coeur titled “J’accuse!” in which he declared that, as God was his witness, he would never again vote for Obama. The editors of the Jesuit magazine America denounced a “wrong decision,” while the Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne called the policy “unconscionable.” When you’ve lost even E.J. and the Jesuits, you’ve lost the church.

The reason liberal Catholics were so wounded is twofold. First, this isn’t a religio-cultural fight over Latin in the Mass or Gregorian chant. The subjects of contraception, abortion, and sterilization are not ornamental aspects of the Catholic faith; they flow from the Church’s central teachings about the dignity of the human person. Second, Obama has left Catholic organizations a very narrow set of options. (1) They may truckle to the government’s mandate, in violation of their beliefs. (2) They may cease providing health insurance to their employees altogether, though this would incur significant financial penalties under Obamacare. (The church seems unlikely to obtain any of Nancy Pelosi’s golden waivers.) Or (3) they may simply shut down. There is precedent for this final option. In 2006, Boston’s Catholic Charities closed its adoption service​—​one of the most successful in the nation​—​after Massachusetts law required that the organization must place children in same-sex households.

Which means that what is actually on the block are precisely the kind of social-justice services​—​education, health care, and aid to the needy​—​that liberal Catholics believe to be the most vital works of the church. For conservative Catholics, Obama merely confirmed their darkest suspicions; for liberals, it was a betrayal in full.

As a matter of law, this decision by Obama’s health care bureaucrats seems unlikely to survive. Last month, the Supreme Court struck down another attempt by the administration to bully religious believers in the Hosanna-Tabor case. In that instance, Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission argued that a religious organization does not have the right to control its hiring and firing according to its religious belief. The Court struck down this argument 9-0 in a rebuke so embarrassing that Justice Elena Kagan came close to openly mocking her successor as Obama’s solicitor general during oral arguments. It was the kind of sweeping decision that should have deterred the Obama administration from forcing Catholics into complying with the health insurance mandate, because it suggested that the Court will very likely side against the administration once this matter comes before it. Presidents typically dislike being overturned unanimously by the High Court …”

“…While Catholics were blindsided by the January decision, the left had been paying close attention to the subject for months. In November, several leftist and feminist blogs began beating the war drums, warning Obama not to “cave” (their word) to the bishops. They were joined by the Nation, Salon, the Huffington Post, and the usual suspects. (Sample headline: “The Men Behind the War on Women.”) At the same time, Planned Parenthood and NARAL launched grassroots lobbying efforts and delivered petitions with 100,000 and 135,000 signatures respectively to the White House urging Obama to uphold the policy and not compromise.

In that sense, Obama’s decision might be thought of as akin to his decision halting the Keystone oil pipeline: a conscious attempt to energize his base at the expense of swing voters, who he concluded were already lost.

The other possibility, of course, is that Obama sees the dismantling of Catholic institutions as part of a larger ideological mission, worth losing votes over. As Yuval Levin noted in National Review Online last week, institutions such as the Catholic church represent a mediating layer between the individual and the state. This layer, known as civil society, is one of the principal differences between Western liberal order and the socialist view. …”

“Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church,” said Catholic League head Bill Donohue.

Already Archbishop Timothy Dolan has spoken out against the law and priests around the country have mobilized, reading letters from the pulpit. Donohue said Catholic officials will stop at nothing to put a stop to it.

“This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets,” Donohue said. …”

Planned Parenthood’s Hostages

The abortion provider uses a vast media and political network to maintain its subsidies from government and private charities.

“…Planned Parenthood has spent millions fighting even those legislative initiatives that command extremely wide public support, such as laws requiring parental notification and informed consent for abortions, and those banning late-term abortions when the child developing in the womb is fully viable. Planned Parenthood even opposes a bill recently introduced in Congress to ban abortions for the purpose of sex selection.

It is easy to see why Komen might not wish to be associated with Planned Parenthood. Fighting breast cancer is something all Americans can and do agree on; promoting and performing abortions is something that divides us bitterly.

While Planned Parenthood’s target in the Komen case was new, its tactics are not. In the past two years, we have seen the abortion giant (and the politicians it funds) hold for ransom a diverse array of hostages.

In 2010, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress risked and narrowly averted the rejection of their signature health-care law in order to block the inclusion of provisions (such as the 1970s Hyde Amendment) that prevent federal abortion funding. At the 11th hour, a handful of “pro-life” Democrats capitulated, giving Mr. Obama and Planned Parenthood their victory.

Last year, in April, Mr. Obama risked a government shutdown over language in a resolution that would have defunded Planned Parenthood at the federal level. At the last moment, congressional Republicans gave way and allowed the federal money to keep flowing.

Also in 2011, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services threatened to withhold billions of dollars in Medicaid funds from those states such as Indiana that prohibit state funding of Planned Parenthood and other entities that provide elective abortions. Planned Parenthood strongly opposed Indiana’s attempt to cut off its funding and celebrated the federal government’s intervention. Indiana is currently litigating the matter in federal court.

Most recently, after intense lobbying, the Department of Health and Human Services did the bidding of Planned Parenthood by imposing a mandate on virtually all employers to provide insurance coverage (without cost-sharing) for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations and contraceptives. This threatens to force many religiously affiliated charitable institutions out of the business of providing education, health care and social services to the poor. …”

Archbishop to U.S. Troops: Obamacare Reg ‘Is a Blow to a Freedom…for Which You Have Seen Your Buddies Fall in Battle’

By Terence P. Jeffrey

“…The regulation the archbishop spoke about was finalized by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Jan. 20. It mandates that all health-care plans in the United States cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions. A “religious” employer exemption included in the regulation only applies to organizations that primarily focus on inculcating the tenets of the church in question, primarily employ members of the church, primarily serve members of the church, and is organized under the section of the Internal Revenue Code used by actual parishes.

Catholic hospitals, universities and charitable institutions would not be exempt from the regulation, nor would Catholic individuals, business owners, or insurers.

Because the Catholic Church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception, and abortion are morally wrong and that Catholics cannot be involved in them, and because the Obamacare law requires that all individual purchase health insurance and that larger employers provide health insurance to their workers or face a penalty, the regulation would force Catholics to act against the teachings of their faith and against their consciences.

Archbishop Broglio’s letter opposing the regulation and describing it as a violation of the constitutional rights of Catholics was read verbatim at Masses served by Navy and Air Force chaplains around the world.

However, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains attempted to silence Catholic Army chaplains from reading it at their Masses—an effort rejected and resisted by Archbishop Broglio.

“On Thursday, January 26, Archbishop Broglio emailed a pastoral letter to Catholic military chaplains with instructions that it be read from the pulpit at Sunday Masses the following weekend in all military chapels,” the Catholic Archdiocese for the Military said in a statement.

“The letter calls on Catholics to resist the policy initiative, recently affirmed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, for federally mandated health insurance covering sterilization, abortifacients and contraception, because it represents a violation of the freedom of religion recognized by the U.S. Constitution,” said the statement by the archdiocese.

“The Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains subsequently sent an email to senior chaplains advising them that the Archbishop’s letter was not coordinated with that office and asked that it not be read from the pulpit,” said the archdiocese’s statement. “The Chief’s office directed that the letter was to be mentioned in the Mass announcements and distributed in printed form in the back of the chapel.”

On Saturday, Jan. 28, after the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains issued this directive, Archbishop Broglio spoke with Secretary of the Army John McHugh, a political appointee of President Barack Obama.

Archbishop Broglio’s position was that, in trying to stop Catholic Army chaplains from reading his pastoral letter, the Army was violating his First Amendment rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion and the First Amendment rights of Catholic chaplains and Catholic service members. …”

“…The White House struggled Wednesday to contain the growing uproar over its birth-control mandate, with Democrats peeling off one by one in what has become an increasingly divisive election-year controversy.

Pressure to roll back the new contraception policy mounted quickly as the day wore on, driven by divisions among Democrats, mixed messages from President Obama’s advisers and a constant drumbeat from the GOP.

“It’s becoming a thorny problem for the White House and it appears to only be getting worse,” said one Democratic strategist. “The politically astute move would be to modify this thing, and quick.”

Asked if the administration should shift course, a former senior administration official said, “I don’t see how they couldn’t. It’s pretty bad.”

With the consternation rising to a fever pitch, Republicans announced a plan to move a bill soon that would repeal the mandate. And prominent Democrats are breaking with the administration over the policy, which requires some religious organizations to cover contraception in their employees’ healthcare plans.

Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) and Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) urged the White House last week to broaden the exception for religious employers. Several of their Democratic colleagues have piled on since.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said Wednesday that the Health and Human Services Department “misstepped” in adopting the new policy.

“I just don’t think this is a fight that should have been picked and I think it needs to be fixed,” Connolly said. “I have every confidence that the administration will do so.”

Tim Kaine, a former Democratic National Committee chairman running for Senate in Virginia this year, also said the White House should revisit the rule’s exemptions for religious organizations. The current policy does not apply to churches, but institutions such as Catholic hospitals and universities have to comply.

“I think the White House made a good decision in including a mandate for contraception coverage in the Affordable Care Act insurance policy, but I think they made a bad decision in not allowing a broad enough religious-employer exemption,” Kaine said in a radio interview, according to a transcript provided by his campaign. …”

“…One of the most influential evangelical leaders in the United States says Christians should go to jail rather than comply with the Obama administration’s mandate to provide all contraception, including abortion-inducing drugs, in their health care plans.

Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), told LifeSiteNews.com “we will not comply” with the Dept. of Health and Human Services’ mandate requiring religious institutions to cover abortifacient products such as Plan B, Ella, and the IUD.

“We want the law changed, or else we’re going to write our letters from the Nashville jail, just like Dr. King wrote his from the Birmingham jail,” Dr. Land said.

Dr. Land wrote an op-ed on Tuesday with Barrett Duke, vice president for public policy and research at ERLC, calling his fellow Southern Baptists and evangelical Christians throughout America to oppose any infringement on the First Amendment. …”

Reverse rule for contraception coverage

“…I thank Vice President Joe Biden for visiting Ohio today.

The Sisters of Charity Health System is a Cleveland-based Catholic health-care organization which, in collaboration with other Catholic health ministries, actively promoted the passage of the Affordable Care Act. We are dedicated to increased health-care coverage and access and are supportive of the law’s efforts to improve quality of care and patient outcomes.

I ask the vice president to help Catholic and other faith-based employers with a recent federal action. We are very disappointed with the Health and Human Services rule on women’s preventive services that requires the inclusion of contraceptive coverage and sterilization in employer-based employee-benefits plans. The regulation denies adequate conscience protections for religious employers like us.

Our faith motivates us; we carry out the healing mission because of God’s call. And we are blessed to be joined in our ministry by a diverse and inclusive work force.

We urge President Barack Obama to be consistent with existing provider conscience-protection laws and allow us to exercise our First Amendment rights to conscience protection as faith-based employers. Please fix this discriminatory rule.

Religious Self-Identification of the U.S. Adult Population: 1990, 2001, 2008[63] Figures are not adjusted for refusals to reply; investigators suspect refusals are possibly more representative of “no religion” than any other group.

“Our Story” Susan B. Anthony List Beginnings

I PLEDGE that I will only support candidates for President who are committed to protecting Life. I demand that any candidate I support commit to these positions:

FIRST, to nominate to the U.S. federal bench judges who are committed to restraint and applying the original meaning of the Constitution, not legislating from the bench;

SECOND, to select only pro-life appointees for relevant Cabinet and Executive Branch positions, in particular the head of National Institutes of Health, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Health & Human Services;

THIRD, to advance pro-life legislation to permanently end all taxpayer funding of abortion in all domestic and international spending programs, and defund Planned Parenthood and all other contractors and recipients of federal funds with affiliates that perform or fund abortions;

FOURTH, advance and sign into law a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion.

Should Sarah Palin decide to run, she is more than acceptable as a candidate for President.

UPDATED Januanry 9, 2011

The only remaining viable pro-life Republican candidate for President that is now acceptable is Ron Paul.

I will not support nor vote for Romney or Gingrich for president.

I will stay home before I vote for another neoconservative progressive Republican.

The lesser of two evils is still evil.

Rick Santorium simply does not have the money and organization needed to be nominated and he is a neoconservative progressive.

Romney, Cain Nix Anti-Abortion Pledge

“…Presidenial hopefuls Mitt Romney and Herman Cain have declined to sign a pledge that calls for White House hopefuls to push for anti-abortion goals if elected presdient, Politico reports. Five other candidates — Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum — have signed the pledge, written by the Susan B. Anthony List.

The pledge requires that candidates promise to nominate or appoint pro-life judges, Cabinet memebrs and administration officials. It also calls for zero taxpayer funding for abortion and the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

Palin sent the e-mail to family and friends in April 2008 in anticipation of the birth of her and her husband Todd’s fifth child, Trig. Palin knew her son would have Down syndrome, and the e-mail is a meditation on that knowledge and on how others should view him in light of the diagnosis.

“I am blessing you with this surprise baby because I only want the best for you,” the e-mail message begins. “I’ve heard your prayers that this baby will be happy and healthy, and I’ve answered them because I only want the best for you!”

Palin included most of the e-mail in her 2009 book Going Rogue.

“In my research on Down syndrome, I learned that these special kids most often bring joy into their family’s lives,” she wrote in that book, explaning her decision to pen a note in the voice of God. “While they had developmental challenges, they were also affectionate, generous, and cheerful. Rather than focus on what could be perceived as negative, I wanted our loved ones to focus on the fact that this baby, every baby, has purpose, and that not only would he learn from us, but we would learn from him.”

“I decided to write the letter as though it were from Trig’s Creator, the same Creator in whom I had put my trust more than thirty years before,” she continued in Going Rogue. “I hoped that even though this new baby would present challenges, we’d trust that God knew best, that He didn’t make mistakes.”

The e-mail message released last week includes lines that Palin edited out of her book. …”

To the Sisters, Brother, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and Friends of Trig Paxson Van Palin (or whatever you end up naming him!):

I am blessing you with this surprise baby because I only want the best for you. I’ve heard your prayers that this baby will be happy and healthy, and I’ve answered them because Ionly want the best for you!

I heard your heart when you hinted that another boy would fit best in the Palin family, to round it out and complete that starting five line-up. Though another girl would be so nice, you didn’t think you could ask for what you REALLY wanted, but I knew, so I gave you a boy because I only want the best for you!

Then, I put the idea in your hearts that his name should be “Trig”, because it’s so fitting, with two Norse meanings: “True” and “Brave Victory”. You also have a Bristol Bay relative with that name, so I knew it would be best for you!

Then, I let Trig’s mom have an exceptionally comfortable pregnancy so she could enjoy every minute of it, and I even seemed to rush it along so she could wait until near the end to surprise you with the news – that way Piper wouldn’t have so long to wait and count down so many days – just like Christmastime when you have to wait, impatiently, for that special day to finally open your gift? (Or the way the Palins look forward to birthday celebrations that go on for three, four days… you all really like cake .) I know you, I knew you’d be better off with just a short time to wait!

Then, finally, I let Trig’s mom and dad find out before he was born that this little boy will truly be a GIFT. They were told in early tests that Trig may provide more challenges, and more joy, than what they ever may have imagined or ever asked for. At first the news seemed unreal and sad and confusing . But I gave Trig’ s mom and dad lots of time to think about it because they needed lots of time to understand that everything will be OK, in fact, everything will be great, because I only want the best for you!

I‘ve given Trig’s mom and dad peace and joy as they wait to meet their new son. I gave them a happy anticipation because they asked me for that. I‘ll give all of you the same happy anticipation and strength to deal with Trig’s challenges, but I won’t impose on you…

I just need to know you want to receive my offer to be with all of you and help you everyday to make Trig’s life a great one.

This new person in your life can help everyone put things in perspective and bind us together and get everyone focused on what really matters . The baby will expand your world and let you see and feel things you haven’t experienced yet. He’ll show you what “true, brave victory“ really means as those who love him will think less about self and focus less on what the world tells you is ”normal“ or ”perfect”. You will grow and be blessed with greater understanding that will be born along with Trig.

Trig will be his dad‘s little buddy and he’ll wear Carhartts while he learns to tinker in the garage. He’ll love to be read to, he’ll want to play goalie, and he‘ll steal his mom’s heart just like Track, Bristol, Willow and Piper did. And Trig will be the cuddly, innocent, mischievous, dependent little brother that his siblings have been waiting for in fact Trig will – in some diagnostic ways – always be a mischievous, dependent little brother, because I created him a bit different than a lot of babies born into this world today.

Every child is created special, with awesome purpose and amazing potential. Children are the most precious and promising ingredient in this mixed up world you live in down there on earth. Trig is no different, except he has one extra chromosome. Doctors call it “Down’s Syndrome”, and Downs kids have challenges, but can bring you much delight and more love than you can ever imagine! Just wait and see, let me prove this, because I only want the best for you!

Some of the rest of the world may not want him, but take comfort in that because the world will not compete for him. Take care of him and he will always be yours!

Trig‘s mom and dad don’t want people to focus on the baby’s extra chromosome. They’re human, so they haven’t known how to explain this to people who are so caring and are interested in this new little Alaskan. Sarah and Todd want people to share in the joy of this gift I’m giving to the Palin family, and the greater Alaska family. Many people won’t understand… and I understand that. Some will think Trig should not be allowed to be born because they fear a Downs child won’t be considered “perfect” in your world. (But tell me, what do you earthlings consider “perfect” or even “normal” anyway? Have you peeked down any grocery store isle, or school hallway, or into your office lunchroom lately? Or considered the odd celebrities you celebrate as “perfect” on t.v.? Have you noticed I make `em all shapes and sizes? Believe me ,, there is no “perfect”!)

Many people will express sympathy, but you don’t want or need that, because Trig will be a joy. You will have to trust me on this.

I know it will take time to grasp this and come to accept that I only want the best for you, and I only give my best. Remember though: “My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts… for as the heavens are higher than the earth, my ways are higher than yours!”

I wrote that all down for you in the Good Book ! Look it up! You claim that you believe me – now it’s time to live out that belief!

Please look to me as this new challenge and chapter of life unfolds in front of you. I promise to equip you. I won‘t give you anything you can’t handle. I am answering your prayers. Trig can’t wait to meet you. I’m giving you ONLY THE BEST!

Suggest that Bill Bennett interview Lia Mills on his morning talk radio show Bill Bennett’s Morning in America, Laura Ingraham on her talk radio show and then Glenn Beck do the same on his evening television show.